


Issue

by Million_Moments



Series: Succession [3]
Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Humor, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 29,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Million_Moments/pseuds/Million_Moments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third in the Succession series, picks up where Properly left off!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 4 Weeks

**Author's Note:**

> You will need to have read Succession and Properly to understand this. This story will use the character of Prince Edward quite heavily and I say character because though he is a real Prince this is in no way an RPF story. I know very little about him or his personality, and chose him simply because he studied History at Cambridge and did used to film documentaries about it. Everything else is entirely made up and hopefully I will not get sued.

From Properly:

 

_As his mother was leaving she paused to add, “Just think, perhaps next time we come to Saint Marie it’ll be to meet Viscount Ipswich!”_

_Richard more than a little embarrassed by his mother’s comment, but Camille was smiling politely and nodding.  Once his parents were out of ear shot (about 5 metres given how noisy the party was) Camille turned to him and asked, “There is some sort of Viscount coming to live on the island?”_

_Oh, well, that explained her lack of embarrassment – she hadn’t actually understood what his mother had been saying. He smiled, somewhat ruefully, and told her, “No, my mother was taking the opportunity to remind us of her desire for grandchildren. Viscount Ipswich would be the title given to our first born son.”_

_Camille gave him a long look, before saying firmly, “I don’t like that.”_

 

* * *

 

After her little pronouncement, which was not what Richard had expected in the slightest, Camille had turned neatly on her heel and stormed off. There was a time when Richard would have thought this meant he should her alone until she had calmed down, but he had rapidly learnt that she always expected him to follow her and makes amends. Except on this occasion, he couldn’t quite figure out what he had done wrong. He therefore allowed himself a few moments to wrack his brain, but when he continued to remain clueless, he hurried after her. He located her in a relatively quiet corridor of the hotel where the reception is being held. She was visibly upset.

“Camille!” He cried, distressed by the fact he had somehow reduced his wife to tears on their wedding day. “What is it?”

“It’s just,” she sniffed, attempting to get her emotions under control. “I didn’t realise that our child would get the title from birth, you know. I thought it was something that they weren’t entitled to until they were 18.”

“Right.” Richard was glad Camille was talking to him, but he couldn’t quite figure out what the problem was yet. Eventually he was forced to ask, “You feel this will make a difference?”

“Yes!” Camille replied, her voice increasing in volume. She seemed annoyed he didn’t understand her issue. “Of course it does. Don’t you see? You never expected to be a Duke one day, but if the child knows from a young age what they are going to eventually be it could, could, give them some sort of complex!”

Richard decided it was best not to point out that Camille was accusing some members of his family of ‘having a complex’, firstly because he was sure that wasn’t what she was trying to do and secondly because he wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that. “Well, I mean, they would know their Grandfather was a Duke and I was an Earl irrespective of when the title is granted, so…”

“Yes, but there _is_ a difference if people are _calling_ them Viscount Ipswich! That will give them a feeling of entitlement!” The tears were back, and he was starting to panic. Suddenly, there was an awkward clearing of the throat from further down the corridor, and to Richard’s horror HRH Price Edward appeared from around the corner. The man looked about as embarrassed at having been forced to witness the exchange as Richard felt about him having heard it.

“Excuse me, Madam, I had stepped out here to make a phone call and I couldn’t help but overhear. You do rather have the sort of voice that carries, especially when upset…” He might be a member of the royal family, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t spared Camille’s glare. Having been exposed to it on many occasions himself, Richard winced in sympathy. Prince Edward took it rather well, clearly his throat again and bravely continuing. “As somebody with children who have titles, I thought I might be able to offer you a little reassurance.”

He placed a hand on the small of Camille’s back and gently guided her to the doorway of the ballroom where the majority of the guests remained, “Now you see that small boy, there, the one my dear wife is trying to clean up because he has somehow managed to get more cake on his face than in his mouth? And my daughter, Louise, who is dancing with that gentlemen who I believe is on your own police force and his daughter?” Camille nodded silently. “Do they look like they even realise they are ninth and tenth in line for the thrown?”

“Well, no, not really,” Camille admitted.

“I can assure you that they act like any other child,” the Prince told her kindly. “Sophie worried in much the same way you did, and perhaps you would like to consult with her on the matter, but I really don’t think there is any need to distress yourself so - even if I do understand your concern.”

Camille looked up at Prince Edward, obviously relieved, and Richard found himself more than a little jealous that the man had managed to comfort Camille where he had failed. He added, largely in an attempt to feel useful, “Besides, we may have all girls anyway!”

“Well that would also solve the issue!” Prince Edward agreed cheerfully. “And you know little girls _are_ wonderful, though slightly more demanding than boys in my experience…” Once again the Prince trailed off after he received a sharp look from Camille, one that was then turned in Richard’s direction.

“What do you mean?”

“Well Louise tends to be a bit more fussy-“

“No!” Camille interrupted rudely. Richard winced again and hoped the Prince would be willing to forgive her. “Not that! What do you mean by the problem being solved by us only having girls?”

“Because they wouldn’t inherit the title,” Richard explained.

“What?”

“The Dukedom is passed down the male line,” he continued, uncertain how this fact could have escaped Camille.

She looked at him aghast, “But, but what about that law your Father spoke about! The Succession to the Crown Act, 2013!”

He shared a quick glance with Prince Edward, “That law only applies to the UK throne. The Duke of Grafton is a peerage and is thus subject to entirely different rules of succession.”

“In fact each peerage may have very different rules of succession, depending at what point the peerage was created, though the majority are just inherited through the male line,” The Prince added.

Camille stared at the two of them, and it wasn’t hard to work out she was unhappy. Her next words confirmed this, “So you are telling me that if we have a girl, followed by a boy, the boy will inherit the title and everything and the poor girl gets nothing? What is this, Pride and Prejudice?”

Richard felt the comparison was a little unfair, not that he would ever say that, “Of course not, I am sure we would make provisions for all of our children in our will no matter what gender they were!”

“I don’t think it’s fair!” She argued back. “Why shouldn’t the girl inherent the Dukedom?”

Prince Edward surprised them both by chiming in, “I quite agree actually, and so would my Mother. You know, I do believe there is no reason why the Dukedom should _have_ to carry on being inherited down the male line.”

They both turned to look at the Prince enquiringly now, and he continued, “Well, if Richard here could get his father to agree I could have a word with my Mother who I am almost certain would sign off on an official decree. She was a great supporter of the Succession to the Crown Act, if I tell her how passionately you feel I think she would sympathise entirely.”

And there HRH went again, being the hero. Camille turned to Richard and asked hopefully, “Would your father agree?”

“My mother would make him agree, even if he didn’t,” Richard told her with a small smile. She looked relieved, but he could still tell she was worried. She really was getting herself worked up unnecessarily, he wished he had thought to have this conversation with her sooner. “Honestly, Camille, despite what our Mothers might want we don’t _have_ to have children straight away. I mean we’ve potentially a good couple of years to talk through all your worries and sort out the succession issue.” Camille gave a small shake of her head in response. “We don’t have years?” He asked, puzzled, before realisation struck. “ _You’re pregnant?!?”_

She didn’t confirm it, instead shot a sideways glance at Prince Edward. His Royal Highness was looking rather embarrassed again. “Ah,” he began. “I shall call my Mother tomorrow. And I shall also leave you alone and go help my wife wrestle the children into bed.” As he was leaving he gave Richard a friendly pat on the shoulder, which he interpreted as his way of congratulating him.

“How long have you known?” He asked as soon as the Prince was out of ear shot.

“Only a couple of weeks!” She said sounding more than a little defensive. “I was going to tell you tonight, you know, as a wedding present. I thought it would be a nice surprise!”

He didn’t reply to that, he was still trying to process the information. They hadn’t actually decided on where to live yet, and now they were going to need somewhere that was big enough for the three of them. Then there was his mother to contend with, if she heard Camille was pregnant before she left she may insist on staying on the island for the whole pregnancy. Police officers weren’t entitled to maternity leave, so he would need to check when the ISAs he had were due to mature and consider spending some of those to make up for their loss of earnings. He didn’t really want to take any money from his parents. Oh, and the Christening, they hadn’t discussed what religion to raise any children. If she agreed to Church of England would they need to go all the way to England to have the baptism? Should he learn French so raising the baby bilingual would be easier? Should they hire a nanny, or send the child to day care? Of course that was presuming that Camille did want to return to work…

“Richard!” Camille said urgently, waving a hand in front of his face. The worried look was back, and once she was certain she had his attention she asked hesitantly, “It _is_ a nice surprise, right?”

Richard shook himself out of his revere and realised with a pang of guilt he should really have said something positive in response by now, he was such an idiot. He pulled Camille close to him and told her sincerely, “Yes, it’s wonderful, just a little unexpected. You know how I always overthink things, I just mentally started listing all of the things we have to do!” He pulled back to kiss her on the forehead, then smiled down at her – she smiled back.

“There _is_ a lot,” she agreed. “But you are so efficient I think we might just cope.”

“We’ll do better than just cope, we’re going to be brilliant!” After a pause, he added, “Ok, I’ll try my best but you will be brilliant and thus make up for all of my short-falls.”

“Don’t be so negative,” Camille chided him. “I think you are going to be a wonderful Father. And you _know_ I’m always right.”

Actually, they both knew she _wasn’t_ always right – but Richard sincerely hoped she would be on this occasion. 


	2. 8 Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Willowsticks, who knows so much about titles and inheritance that I suspect she is a member of the nobility. I have narrowed it down to….not the Countess of Wessex. Actually the first part of this fic does discuss peerages quite a bit…

Over the next few weeks, Camille became practically the caricature of a pregnant woman. She was volatile, she was regularly being sick and she was exhausted. As a consequence, though very few people knew, everybody _knew_. They were just polite enough not to say anything until whenever they decided to make the official announcement. Richard was forced to tell his parents earlier than he would have liked in order to sort out the changes to the inheritance of the title. They were suitably delighted, and every time he rang hoping to talk to his father about the inheritance issue he would find himself stuck on the phone to his mother, who he swore could somehow talk for 40 minutes non-stop without taking a breath.

One day he finally got through to his Dad, who listened patiently as Richard recounted the story of how he had discovered Camille was pregnant, and her fears and concerns about the whole thing.  

“But they _would_ be titled Lady,” his Father pointed out. He was not necessarily objecting to changing the Dukedom so that it could pass down the female line (nobody in the family really wanted cousin Barry to inherit). What he was doing was quite rightly pointing out was that Richard had gotten the facts a bit wrong in his conversation with Camille.

“I didn’t really think about that,” Richard admitted. “I was just desperate to calm Camille down about the whole ‘having a title might warp their upbringing’ fear. I do still think she is going to want the Dukedom to go to the first born regardless though…”

“Well,” his father began. “That does seem like the modern thing to do, doesn’t it? Though it is highly unlikely you’ll need it. There hasn’t been a Poole female since, oh let me see, your Great-Great-Great Grandfathers sister, Lady Elsbeth.”

Richard looked around furtively, but his wife was not in ear shot, “Yes, Dad, about that. I haven’t exactly mentioned to Camille about the tendency of the family to have all boys because I think she is quite keen on having a girl one day and given her current, uh, emotionally heightened state I don’t think it is the best time to mention it. I’m rather hoping it is all a coincidence.”

They then spent a happy few minutes working out the actual chances of his great-great grandmother having 5 boys, great-grandmother 6 boys and grandmother 2 boys. It came out at about 0.000122, which Richard was forced to concede meant something else might be going on. The only theory he had was that the Poole Y Chromosome may be smaller than average, making the male sperm considerably faster swimmers than their female counterparts. It was not a theory he was willing to share with his Father though.

Richard decided he better bring the conversation back round to the whole succession issue, as he didn’t think Camille would be very pleased if when she asked him he admitted all he had achieved was calculating some probabilities with his Father.

“I think Edward is right about Her Majesty allowing this to happen. She did take the Baron Howard de Walden out of abeyance to grant it to the current Lady Howard de Walden,” His Father said thoughtfully. “I wonder if any other peerages will follow suit.”

Richard and his Father got a little stuck on the problem of the title that would be granted to the husband of any potential Duchess. Richard was pretty certain that Camille would expect them to be called a Duke, but there didn’t seem to be any precedent for this – the husband of Lady Howard de Walden had his own title inherited from his father. It seemed likely the decision would be made by the Queen, and it would be that the consort had no title. Richard did not look forward to telling Camille this.

 

* * *

 

 

“That’s fine!” Camille said cheerily as she unpacked one of his boxes. They had decided to move into her place for now, because it had a spare room in case the baby arrived before they could find anywhere more suitable. Richard had managed to catch her in a good mood (which could turn violent at any moment given her recent mood swings) and so had told her the current plan to date.

“You’re fine with that?” He asked, a little surprised. He had expected her to object vehemently, burst into tears or throw something at him whilst claiming their daughter’s husband should have as much of a right to a title as their son’s wife. In fact, so convinced was he of that occurring he had checked the box she was unpacking only contained clothes and nothing heavy that could do any damage. He probably shouldn’t question her quiet acceptance, and instead just be thankful for it.  

“If it were up to me and we had a boy, their wife wouldn’t get a title either! I don’t like the idea of somebody just marrying them in order to become a Duchess!” Camille was right to be wary of that occurring, as it had almost happened to Richard and she knew this.

“I’m pretty certain you will thoroughly vet every person who shows even the remotest interest,” Richard told her. “And for as long as my Mother is around she will be doing the same.” Camille just shot him a smile in response to indicate he was right on that front.

“Right,” he said, rather pleased. “I guess we are just waiting on Prince Edward now!” In the few interactions he had had with the Prince since the wedding, Richard hadn’t dared ask how things were going with his side of negotiations.

 

* * *

 

 

A few days later, Camille half skidded into the kitchen and shouted, “I can smell toast! God, do you think that means there is something wrong?”

The high state of anxiety she was suffering was relatively new, though the books that had appeared all over the house on pregnancy did assure Richard that many women suffered in a similar way to Camille. However her concerns about smelling toast had left Richard a little flummoxed.

“I, um, well, I just made toast – that is why you can smell it,” he said, he chose his words carefully – didn’t want to give the impression that he thought she had gone completely mental. Though on some level he was starting to consider the possibility. “Also if I hadn’t, I don’t think smelling toast is a symptom of anything…”

“Oh that explains it then,” she said, seeming much calmer. “Why are you making toast, I thought you had breakfast?”

Yes, he had, and this was the other reason Richard was a little concerned, “Um, you asked me to make you some toast.”

“Did I?” She said, frowning and looking like she was trying to recall the incident.

“Yes,” Richard continued. “About 2 minutes ago…”

“Oh,” Camille said as she sat at the table and accepted the plate of (dry) toast from him. “Well I am a bit hungry and this does normally settle my stomach.” She began to nibble on it, but Richard suspected she didn’t actually want it anymore she was just trying to cover up her embarrassment at having forgotten she requested it in the first place.

There was a knock at the door. They weren’t expecting anyone so it was probably Catherine – one of the few people who ‘officially’ knew about Camille’s condition. Richard went to answer it, but to his surprise it was Prince Edward.

“Your Highness!” He said by way of greeting.

“You know, Richard, you are welcome to call me Edward.”

The idea made Richard very uncomfortable, but he knew it would be far ruder to refuse the offer, “Well, thank you, Edward. Um, please, do come in.”

Richard was going to bring Edward into the front room, then he remembered that Camille had been in a _very_ good mood the evening before and he wasn’t certain if they had picked up all the clothes…he therefore had no choice but to lead the man into the kitchen. Perhaps he would want some toast…

Camille stood up promptly when Edward entered the kitchen and looked conflicted about attempting a curtsy when she didn’t actually have a skirt on. Edward smiled at her kindly and said, “Please, Madam, sit down and don’t let me disturb you.”

Camille opened her mouth, presumable to thank the prince, but before she could she went suddenly very pale, doubled over and threw up the toast she had just consumed…over Edwards’s feet.

“I threw up on your shoes!” She said faintly, still bent over. When she straightened Richard thought he had never seen her so distressed. “I’m _so_ sorry!”

Edward was really rather magnanimous about it, “You know Sophie did that during both her pregnancies, and the Duchess of Cambridge as well, so being vomited on by pregnant woman is practically tradition…”

Camille didn’t take any comfort in this, instead she burst into tears, “I THREW UP ON A PRINCE’S SHOES!” She wailed. Edward shot Richard an alarmed look, and he stepped forward to try and placate his wife. When he went to hug her she shoved him off and went running from the room. A short while later they both heard the bathroom door slam shut. Richard thought on this occasion, he might leave her to calm down a bit.

“I’ll just get a cloth to clean your shoes,” he told Edward, hunting under the sink for something appropriate. “Please do sit down.”

Edward took the cloth from him, even though Richard had been going to offer clean the shoes himself, and wiped them down as he said, “You really must assure your wife I am not offended. I am sure she did not intend to vomit on my shoes. Is her morning sickness particularly bad?”

“I think _every_ symptom of her pregnancy may be particularly bad. Just before you arrived she came in panicking because she could smell toast, and had no recollection of having just asked me to make her some,” he confided in the prince. He was desperately hoping to hear he was not the only one whose wife started acting a bit crazy during pregnancy.

“Ah yes, bit early for ‘baby brain’ as I’ve heard it called but not entirely unusual. Once Sophie asked me to arrange croissants for breakfast, and I double checked because they aren’t her usual choice, but she was insistent. When I presented them to her she burst into tears because it wasn’t _pain au chocolat_ like she had actually wanted…” They shared a small smile. Now Richard knew they could bond over suffering at the hands of pregnant wives, he didn’t feel as awkward about calling or thinking of him as Edward anymore.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” He asked, realising he didn’t actually know why Edward was here.

“Actually,” the prince started, looking around before gingerly disposing of the cloth in a bin he spotted. “I believe it is I who can be of assistance to you.”

Richard could guess what that meant, “You’ve spoken to Her Majesty?”

Edward smiled, “My Mother is perfectly willing to sign off on a decree allowing the Dukedom to be inherited by the first born, no matter what the gender.”

Richard was immensely relieved. “That’s wonderful,” he told Edward sincerely. “Camille is going to be extremely pleased.” When she eventually leaves the bathroom, he thought to himself. “I don’t know how to thank you!”

“Well, Sophie, the children, the crew and I will be heading over to Dominica next week to carry out some official duties as well as doing filming there. You really should join us for dinner before we leave. If Lady Poole’s stomach is up for the occasion, of course.”

“Well, so far her morning sickness has just been confined to the morning so we should be able to manage dinner.” Richard informed Edward, then decided he better add, “Though I can’t guarantee she won’t burst into tears for some inexplicable reason…”

 


	3. 9 weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you to Virginie31 who provided me with advice on nutritional guidelines for pregnant women in France.

“Richard, I know it’s a French restaurant, but surely there is _something_ on the menu you like. And if there isn’t, well you have been studying it for days now, it isn’t going to change. You’ll just have to pick whatever you dislike least.” To her own ears, she sounded weary, and the concerned glance she received from her husband let her know she probably sounded exhausted to everyone else as well.

He stood and offered her the chair he was using, and before she started to protest about him babying her he said, “I want to show you something, come on, I’m not staring at the menu for me - it’s for you.”

“Because an Earl’s wife can’t choose her own meal?” She asked as she lowered herself down onto the chair, studying the menu. “Because if that is the case, it is a social protocol you are going to have to learn to live without.”

“No, of course you get to pick what you want to eat, it is just your options seem to be a bit limited.”

Camille could count the number of foods she disliked on one hand, unlike her husband who could fill a 10,000 page book full of gripes, dislikes and aversions he had concerning various foodstuffs. So she wasn’t really sure what he was talking about. “I can already see half a dozen things on this menu I like Richard!”

“Like what?” He asked.

“Well, here, first main course – Coq au vin,” she pointed out.

“But that is made with wine!” He cried, looking horrified she would even consider it. Camille could only conclude he was worried about the alcohol.

“The majority of the alcohol will be cooked off,” she tried to reassure him.

“But not necessarily all of it! There must have been good reason for them to change the pregnancy guidelines to no alcohol at all, Camille,” he argued right back. Camille decided to just consider it sweet that he was concerned about the baby, and pick something else to eat.

“Oh well, then, how about…” She had been about to just suggest the next thing on the list, but realised it contained brie that was likely to be made from unpasteurised milk. Several other items on the list of main courses were out for the same reason. “Ok, well I won’t eat anything cheesy, oh and the pates aren’t an option either…I never realised how pregnancy unfriendly French cuisine could be. But surely I can have _Steak-frites_?”

“Not the way the French cook meat!” He protested loudly. “Your version of well done is still mooing!”

“Richard, don’t be ridiculous, I can just explain that I am pregnant and I am sure they will cook the meat thoroughly.”

He crossed his arms and blew out a long breath, clearly unwilling to accept that as true, “Oh please, all French waiters are rude! You’ll be expected to take the meat as it comes!”

If Camille wasn’t so stupidly tired, they would probably have a massive fight about his unacceptable stereotyping of French waiting staff about now. A fight she was pretty certain she would actually win. But she _was_ stupidly tired, so instead she reminded herself he was doing this only because he cared, gritted her teeth and said calmly, “They can be a little brusque, but not usually to the point where they endanger the lives of unborn children.”

He deflated a little, but apparently had a bit of fight left in him, “I did find something that is definitely safe.”

She decided to humour him, though she knew she would be stubborn and order _Steak-frites_ no matter what. “Oh?”

“Onion soup!”

“Onion soup?” She repeated faintly.

“Yes, I know they sometimes put brandy or some other alcohol in, but I called the restaurant and their recipe doesn’t use that!” He told her proudly.

“You want me to go out to dinner, in a nice restaurant with an award winning chef, and just eat onion soup?” The anger she had tried to temper earlier was rising up again, and this time she didn’t think she could control it.

The steel in her tone made him wary. “Well, um, you _do_ like onion soup,” he offered.

“Not. That. Much.” And then, simply because the other option was to throw the laptop at him, she stormed out of the room and locked herself in the bathroom the calm down. Camille knew, deep down, she was overreacting due to hormones – and he was overreacting due to neurotic fears.

There was a good chance she was going to kill him before this pregnancy was over.

 

* * *

 

 

Richard, sensibly, came and apologised for attempting to limit her meal to just onion soup about ten minutes later. After letting him grovel for 5 minutes, she let him in. Then, in a move that surprised her almost as much as it did him, pulled him down onto the bathroom floor to make love. Perhaps those pregnancy hormones would keep him alive after all.

“I’ll have the onion soup as a starter,” she told him, as she lay curled up in his arms – neither of them had found the energy to move from the floor yet, even though it wasn’t particularly comfortable. Her statement had meant to be a further peace offering, a compromise, but Richard looked at her blankly. Apparently the sex had entirely driven their earlier conversation out of his mind. “At the restaurant,” she reminded him.

“Oh right! Well you have whatever you want, I trust you to pick things that are safe for our baby.”

She couldn’t resist the temptation to tease him a little, “Well in that case the _pâté de foie gras_ looked pretty amazing.”

She noticed his grip on her tightened slightly, wondered if he was considering just locking her up to be able to control her diet. “Yes, I suppose that is an option. Though, um, the liver in the _foie gras_ will contain very high levels of retinol which can be damaging to foetal development. And pate presents a risk of listeria infection. You know, just want you to have, um, all the facts when you make your choice.”

He was a moron for thinking she had been serious, and she hit him hard on the chest to make that point. “I’m joking Richard! I did know both those things already. Besides, I don’t even like _foie gras_.”

 

* * *

 

 

Camille took her time picking an outfit. It had nothing to do with their dining companions – any hope she had of impressing the Earl of Wessex and his wife went out the window the second she threw up on the former’s shoes. No, she was considering her options carefully because she knew it wouldn’t be long until most of these dresses didn’t fit. Standing before the wardrobe, she glanced down at her stomach and frowned. She was sure it was rounder than it used to be, but it was probably paranoia because she was far too early on to be showing. Of course it could be actual fat rather than baby related, she had started eating far more than she used to. She couldn’t help herself, she was starving all the time. Richard looked like he had actually lost a couple of pounds, probably due to her stealing food off his plate.

She only actually owned three really nice dresses, suitable for the sort of place they were dining at. She’d been a little tempted to go out and buy a new one for the occasion, but Richard’s practicality must be rubbing off on her as she felt she couldn’t justify the expense when there was a chance she would never fit into the thing again. With a small sigh, she selected something sleek and strappy – a personal favourite and one Richard had always rather enjoyed taking off as well.

 

 

Camille, despite her best efforts to just relax, was increasingly nervous. She had assumed she could just sit next to Richard and let him do most if the talking, since he and Price Edward seemed to have rather hit it off at some point. It was on the way to the restaurant Richard had told her that sitting next to your spouse wasn’t really the done thing. Apparently the entire seating arrangement had been planned ahead of time, something he had not thought to tell her. She would be sitting next to Prince Edward’s secretary on one side and the Mayor of Honore on the other, and opposite the Countess of Wessex and her daughter Lady Louise. Further panic then ensued when Richard started explaining how she should approach her chair from the right, as whoever was to her left would help her be seated.

“One, I can seat myself and two, could you not have told me this a little earlier? You made it sound like some sort of family dinner, a small affair not something so formal!” She could use a drink, but the stupid pregnancy meant that was out of the question.

“I think that was the original intention, but you know what the Mayor is like. He wanted a proper send off!” He explained. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier Camille, you’re such a natural you know I sometimes forget you weren’t born to it.” Richard said this with his best smile, clearly hoping to flatter his way out of trouble. “Also, did I mention how beautiful you look?”

Camille decided to let it slide, for now.

 

* * *

 

 

“Louise, you remember Lady Poole,” The Countess of Wessex said to her daughter. Camille cringed.

“Oh no, please, call me Camille,” she insisted immediately. She didn’t think she would ever get used to “Lady Poole”. They’d used it at the dentist of all places the other day, causing everyone in the waiting room to stare at her.

“You have bare shoulders,” Louise pointed by way of greeting. Camille frowned, unsure why this was of interest to the girl, and seeing her confusion Louise continued, “Not really proper protocol to have bare shoulders when with Royalty.”

“Louise!” Her mother berated her, looking mortified by her daughter’s behaviour. Camille was rather embarrassed, she had previously looked up that very fact about dress codes and applied it to when Richard’s parents were visiting. Her own wedding dress had covered her shoulders for that very reason. And she had instantly forgotten it, all because she wanted a chance to wear something she wouldn’t be able to for the foreseeable future! Richard was going to be in serious trouble when they got home, he should have told her.

“It’s okay Mummy,” Louise insisted. “I’m not judging Camille, she is very new after all. What she needs it somebody to give her lots of nice advice on Royal protocol, and I think I am just the person for the job! I have previous experience you know, with Kate.”

“She means the Duchess of Cambridge,” The Countess explained, seeing Camille’s blank look.

Camille had to admit, she rather liked Louise’s confidence. And it was obvious the girl was actually trying to be kind. “Well I could certainly use a few tips,” She conceded. “Though I am not sure how often I will put them to use here on Saint Marie.”

“Yes but you’ll need to know these things when you’re presented to court,” Louise told her firmly.

“I, um, they still do that? I thought it stopped.”

“You are probably thinking of debutantes being presented to court, a practise that has now been abolished,” Sophie explained. “I believe my dear daughter is referring to the fact that on your first trip to the UK you will be invited to court to meet Her Majesty and others.”

For some reason, this eventuality had not occurred to Camille before. Considering the _faux pas_ she had made with both the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Wessex, should could only imagine how catastrophically she could mess up in a room full of Royals and aristocrats. The Prince’s secretary, who had been listening politely to the conversation, must have seen the colour drain from her face because he hurried to pour her a glass of water.

“I am sure everyone will be delighted to meet you, Lady Poole,” he told her kindly.

“I will tell them all you are very nice, and pretty, and like Beyoncé so clearly have good taste in music,” Louise offered. “Plus I am happy to continue to offer advice during dinner.”

“I think,” Camille said carefully. “That may actually be a good idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Louise took to you like a house on fire,” Richard said in the car on the way home. He, being allowed to drink, had done so merrily and was in a rather jolly mood as a consequence. “Seeing you two whispering away to each other, made me sort of hope we have a girl. Mind if James had been sat near you I bet you would have charmed him equally and I’d be saying how much I want a boy!”

“Louise was offering me advice on Royal etiquette, which God knows I need since you keep forgetting to do so,” Camille was not in such a good mood. She _had_ enjoyed her chat with Louise and the Countess (who had insisted she call her Sophie) but she _hadn’t_ forgotten Richard had failed to point out the issue with her dress beforehand. Or had told her of the seating arrangements rather late in the day. Her bad mood with him was probably largely brought on though by him being a bit drunk, and her feeling distinctly nauseous as the car bumped along.

“Oh Camille, it’s not like we were at court,” he said dismissively. “I’ll make sure you are fully prepared when that day comes!”

“Yes, thank you for telling me I would be _presented_ to the Queen by the way. So nice to hear that from my husband, as opposed to having my ignorance highlighted by a ten year old girl!”

Richard remained silent, realising at last just how annoyed she was. He was probably feeling hard done by, but Camille didn’t care. Didn’t he remember what it was like when he suddenly found himself an Earl? And that was growing up in a family where his uncle was a Duke, so he had some idea about how the whole thing worked. She’d been thrust into this world without any of that prior experience, and she’d done it because she loved him and it was part of the package that came with marrying him.

“Camille, they are leaving tomorrow and after that we can essentially just go back to being police officers, and parents expecting their first child. I’m sorry…I…I’m sorry marrying me means you have to put up with all of this.” He did look genuinely upset.

“It’s not a case of putting up with it, Richard, I’m sure once I get the hang of everything I’d probably enjoy it more than you do. I just need a little help getting things right. There was once a time I was the one who advised you on social matters and human interactions, with all these rules you are used to I know now why you needed those lessons. Time for a bit of role reversal, I think.”

He reached across and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. Camille knew they’d be okay.


	4. 12 weeks

“Will you be finding out the sex of the baby?” His mother asked him for probably the twentieth time. The first time had been thirty seconds after she found out Camille was pregnant, and Richard had been honestly able to say he had no idea – naturally they hadn’t thought about it yet. The problem was since that initial conversation, they still hadn’t decided, and now they were on the way to the hospital and arguing about it. The stupid thing was they didn’t even normally do gender at the 12 week scan, but there was a chance they might be able to tell, and as a consequence Camille was obsessed with having a definite answer before they arrived.

“I am willing to go with your decision on this,” Richard told her once again.

“But you said it would help you feel more connected to the baby!” She half wailed. Yes, he had, and he really wished he hadn’t. Camille had asked him if he wanted to know the sex, giving the impression that she didn’t mind either way, when in reality she had her heart set on it being a surprise when the baby was born.

“I said it _might_ make me feel more connected to the baby. I don’t think it is necessary, I am sure I’ll cope not knowing!”

“You aren’t supposed to just cope, you are supposed to be excited about it being a surprise.”

“I would be excited for it to be a surprise! I am very excited just by the prospect of seeing our baby for the first time today,” he tried to reassure her. And he really was excited – though also a little terrified that the scan would show up something wrong. Camille had been rather firm in telling him she would be carrying the child to term irrespective of any disabilities that might be detected, and he knew he could love any child that was theirs, so at least that was one thing they had decided ahead of time.

“Really, Camille, we could say if they offered to tell us the gender today we would rather wait until the next scan. It will be more accurate at 20 weeks anyway.”

“I’m worried we _still_ won’t have made up our minds by that scan!” She leaned forward, head in hands, and Richard hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. The car had only just stopped smelling from the last time she had thrown up in it. “I guess that is the route we will have to take for now. God I need to pee!” She glared at him, Richard may have forced about twice the recommended amount of water down her that morning, worried that not enough would prevent them from getting a good picture.

“You can’t go to the toilet until after the scan!” He reminded her as he parked up.

“Yes, I know, you told me about six times. So let’s get in there before I wet myself!”

 

* * *

 

 

“You sure you are 12 weeks?” This was the first question the sonographer asked when she saw Camille’s stomach.

“Yes, why?” Camille asked, looking distinctly nervous and suddenly grabbing Richard’s hand.

The sonographer realised the effect her question had had and explained more fully, “Oh, it’s nothing, you just look maybe 15 or 16. But every pregnancy has different sized bumps, we’ll date the baby soon enough.” She placed the transducer on her stomach, and a fuzzy black and white image appeared on the screen. “Well, pretty evident why you have a bigger bump there.” She pointed towards the screen.

“Is that two babies?” Richard asked faintly. He knew the answer was going to be yes, but did want to check he wasn’t hallucinating. Camille’s grip on his hand got a lot tighter.

“You are indeed expecting twins, congratulations!”

“Are they sharing an amniotic sac?” Richard asked, surprising Camille.

“Nope, separate placentas as well,” the sonographer told him, examining the screen.

“What does that mean?” Camille asked.

“Oh, if they were sharing a placenta or an amniotic sac we’d know they were identical twins,” Richard explained. “It’s good they aren’t, that can cause problems sometimes during delivery.” Now he was over the initial shock, he was feeling pretty smug he had read the section about twins and ultrasound scans in the book.

“So they aren’t identical?”

“No they might be,” the sonographer said. “They could also be fraternal though as well. Right now, this baby on the bottom here, he or she will be called Baby A for the moment and the one on top Baby B.” Actually, now Richard thought about it, the way the babies appeared to be stacked on top of each other was pretty amusing. “Shall we now have a listen to the heartbeats? We’ll start with Baby A.”

The sonographer did something clever with the machines and suddenly the sound of a rapid heartbeat filled the room. Camille’s reaction to this was to burst into tears. “Those are happy tears, right?” Richard felt the need to check.

“Yes,” she sniffed. “It’s just so wonderful!”

The sonographer gave her a patient smile, “A lot of women have a similar reaction. Even the Dad’s tear up sometimes.” Camille now turned to Richard with an accusing stare, and he felt guilty that he wasn’t teary. The sonographer gave a little cough, rescuing Richard by announcing, “Time for Baby B!”

The heartbeat sounded pretty much identical to the first one, and Richard hoped that because she hadn’t said anything to the contrary, they were both healthy ones. She confirmed it, “They both sound great, guys. Measurements are all indicating 12 weeks, both babies seem healthy. That will make your due date September 2nd, though with twins they’ll probably be early!”

“It doesn’t seem that far away,” Camille said, and Richard knew what she meant. Before it had seemed like they barely had enough time to get ready for one baby, now they had two to prepare for.

“Few more things to check guys and then I’ll print you off some photos. Babies aren’t really in a good position for me to tell you sex at this stage, think you’ll have to wait until the next scan for that.” Well, that was one issue quickly glossed over.

Camille couldn’t take her eyes off the screen. “How will it work with the title and stuff, if we are having twins?”

Richard would have thought it was obvious. “Oh, you know, whoever is born first will get the Dukedom and the other just a courtesy title.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he said, suddenly getting a bad feeling.

“But…but isn’t that a bit unfair?”

The sonographer was clearly trying not to listen, and Richard decided to aid her in that aim by lowering his voice a little, “How is it any different from two single births in a row?”

“It _is_ different!” Camille insisted. “They could be separated by minutes, not years! And..and…what if I have a caesarean! Then a surgeon would be picking the future Duke or Duchess of Grafton! How is that fair?”

That was an interesting point, but Richard really wasn’t sure what Camille was asking of him. “Camille, it’s a fact, I can’t do anything about it, and I’m not sure what to tell you.”

“Well, the fact that the Dukedom would go to the first born boy rather than girl was ‘just a fact’,” she wielded, and his heart sank.

“This isn’t the same, Camille.” She gave him a stricken look, and Richard knew he was going to give in. “Ok,” he said, with a small sigh. “I’ll call Edward – but I’m not guaranteeing anything!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems to be becoming fandom canon that Richard and Camille have twins. Who am I to argue with fandom canon?


	5. 12 weeks and a little bit

Camille wept on and off all the way back from the hospital, clutching the envelope with the scan pictures inside. His wife had always been a bit volatile, and subject to mood swings, but something about her pregnancy hormones has turned her into an anxious mess and he wasn’t prepared to cope with it. It was _him_ who was supposed to be the anxious mess, not Camille, she was supposed to tell him to stop worrying and relax. Perhaps in a few weeks’ time, as the hormones began to shift again, she would return to something akin to her old self. In the meantime he would just have to try to be as supportive as he could, which included making entirely pointless enquires with a Prince of England.

“Will you call him when we get in?” Camille had asked in the car, in between sobs.

“Camille, he has official engagements on Dominica all day, I don’t think he’ll have time to talk to me,” he explained in what he hoped was a soothing tone. “But I already have a call arranged with him the day after tomorrow, so perhaps I could ask then?” Camille looked like she was going to protest that that was far too long to leave it, but before she could he gently pointed out, “It isn’t like the babies are going to arrive tomorrow.” She slumped back into the seat, and he took that as an acceptance of his suggestion.

 

* * *

 

 

Camille was quite calm for the next couple of days, pleased she could start telling people. Richard couldn’t help but notice she seemed quite proud of her little bump, deliberately selecting clothes that showed it off. He wasn’t sure if she had deliberately changed her gait to emphasise it more, or if it was do so with all those hormones. He hadn’t really realised pregnancy went as far as to change a woman’s skeletal-muscular system, and the more he read the more he was glad men didn’t have to give birth.

Camille had framed the scan picture and put it up in the living room, which he thought was a little strange. In six months they would have actually baby pictures to put up, which were bound to be more attractive than a fuzzy black and white scan printout. He certainly thought he should keep them, and show it to interested parties, and he had scanned them in and emailed them to his Mother – but putting them on display seemed a step too far. But with Camille being so unstable at the moment, he wouldn’t dare say such a thing, and it wasn’t such a hardship to live with.

On the day he was due to call Edward, Camille woke up all wound up and moody again. She was clearly worried about what he was going to say.

“Whatever baby is born second is going to know from a very young age that they are different from their brother or sister. Even though they’ll be playmates, he or she will always resent their slightly older sibling, and wonder why it wasn’t them who was born first. At every official event they attend they’ll be reminded of the fact they will not be inheriting the Dukedom. You have to realise, Richard, that it would only be natural for them to lash out and blame _us_ for their lack of title. As they get older it will only get worse, and all that natural inclination to rebel that comes along with teenagers will lead them to run away and become a drug addict. Eventually they’ll end up dead in some crack house on Jamaica!” She told him all this over breakfast. Richard was impressed by how much detail she put into her little tale of woe. She sounded utterly convinced that this was the inevitable outcome of them having twins, where only one had a courtesy title.

The problem was, Richard already knew that there was nothing he or Edward could do, and that Camille _was_ going to be disappointed. This was hardly the first set of twins to be born in similar circumstances, and as far as he knew the disastrous picture Camille was painting hadn’t actually happened. Well, perhaps there was some minor law he didn’t know about that Edward would and the whole thing would be sorted…

He told Camille he was calling Edward that afternoon, but actually did so when she went off to have a lie down after breakfast because her head was hurting. He went outside so she wouldn’t overhear him, because if she knew exactly what he planned to tell Edward she would probably beat him to death with the nearest heavy object.

Richard actually managed to avoid bringing the whole topic up for quite some time, but he knew he would have to eventually, and so he opened with, “Look, I know there is nothing you can do, but we’ve had our 12 week scan and it seems Camille is expecting twins.”

“Well, you’re right, there is nothing I can do about that,” Edward quipped, making Richard realise he hadn’t exactly explained himself. “But I can offer my congratulations. Gosh, two at once, I imagine that will be fun!”

“Right, yes, thank you. Bit of a surprise but a nice one, I think.”

“You think?”

“Well, do you remember how upset Camille was when she realised that if we only had girls they wouldn’t inherit the title?” Richard paused and he could practically here the penny drop on the other end of the line.

“She is upset now that only the first born will get a title?” Edward guessed correctly. “But Richard that would have been the case if you had two children anyway.”

“Oh please don’t think I haven’t already pointed that out to her!” He said, irritation getting the better of him for a moment. He loved Camille, but on this point she was being more than a little crazy. “She is convinced it is _different_ because they are twins and that the second born will be resentful and turmoil and woe will follow.”

There was a pause, before Edward said, “You certainly married a…interesting woman.”

“I’m not entirely sure it is _all_ her,” Richard said in defence of Camille. “I do think the pregnancy has made her rather anxious. But I promised I would call you to ask if there is anything you or Her Majesty could do. I thought it might placate her somewhat, even though I realise there _is_ nothing that can be done.”

“There is certainly no precedent,” Edward admitted. “I mean, I could talk to my mother…”

“Oh no, don’t,” Richard said quickly. “Thank you, but don’t, we both know what the answer will be and I would rather not disturb her after she already did us such a big favour. It’s okay, I’ll just have to be a bit firm and tell Camille there is no room for manoeuvre on this particular issue.”

“She might, um, calm down in the next few weeks. I think the second trimester is generally the easiest of the three.” Richard hoped Edward was right on that front. Thanking the Prince for his time, he hung up and resolved to face Camille…once her headache was a bit better.

 

* * *

 

 

Richard was surprised to find Camille was actually up and about, making herself a cup of mint tea in the kitchen and flicking through a baking book…whilst humming. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her hum in the whole time he had known her. The sometimes-curse of perfect pitch told him she might have a sense of rhythm that made her good at dancing, but that didn’t mean she could hold a tune. The out-of-tune humming was sort of cute though.

“Right, Camille,” he said firmly.

She turned around and smiled at him sweetly, completely throwing him off. “Hello, I saw you were on the phone, did you speak to Edward early then?”

“Yes, I did, and you see…”

She interrupted him, “I was thinking when I was having a little rest that actually, it probably isn’t that big a deal. I mean other royal families and aristocrats or whatever have twins and it hasn’t been a problem for them, has it? I suppose the important thing is that I know _we_ will treat our children as equals, no matter who is born first, won’t we?”

“Well yes, of course we will,” Richard confirmed, wondering if this was really happening.

“So it would be nice if they could both have courtesy titles but I don’t think it is essential. What did Edward say?”

Richard was completely stunned by her rapid change in attitude, and it took him a moment to form a reply, “Oh, um, he’s afraid there is nothing can be done. It has always been the case that the first born takes the title.”

“Oh well, it was worth a try. I was thinking about making these lemon cupcakes – what do you think?”

Richard thought pregnant Camille was going to be the death of him.


	6. 14 Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Issue is probably going to have to turn into a series of quite short chapters – little ficlets if you will – because I have lots of ideas but not enough to write anything substantial around them!

Richard would confess that in the past, he had sometimes been a bad son, and forgotten Mother’s day. He always felt terribly guilty about when he realised though. This year, he and Camille were touring every baby shop on Saint Marie, Guadeloupe and last weekend even took the ferry to Dominica. He quite enjoyed that actually, especially the evening in the hotel, there was something deliciously thrilling about messing a perfect hotel room up and knowing you didn’t have to clean up after yourself. He did leave housekeeping quite a big tip.

All that exposure to baby and kid stuff meant it was impossible to forget Mother’s day, there were plenty of reminders in each of the shops. He used Interflora to order his own mother a massive bunch of flowers, though he did have to ask Camille what sort of flowers his mother actually liked – that was the sort of information she somehow managed to retain.

Impregnating her daughter had put him firmly in Catherine’s good books, and all recent tea had been served with fresh milk, though he still didn’t know where she was obtaining it. Richard thought it was a good idea to remain in her favour by also purchasing her a gift. He therefore bought her back the best rum they made on Dominica, which she had mentioned when she had heard he and Camille were off there for the weekend. He thought Camille would probably quite pleased with him for remembering to get a gift for Catherine as well. Hopefully she’d reward him with similar activities they’d enjoyed on Dominica…

 

* * *

 

 

On the day he woke up before Camille, and decided to let her sleep. Before he had even had his breakfast, he called his Mum. Despite his attempts to get her to talk about what nice things she had planned for herself, he was instead forced to answer a barrage of questions concerning how Camille was doing. Eventually he managed to get out of his mother that yes, his father was taking her out for lunch at The Angel in Bury St Edmunds. And yes, she had received his flowers, and it was terribly sweet of him to send them and she was very impressed he remembered carnations were a favourite of hers. Richard chose not to tell her it was actually Camille who had remembered that, not him.

Richard was glad his Dad was treating his Mum. He was not the only one who had a tendency to forget Mother’s Day, his father had on several occasions he could recall. He was lucky Richard’s mother was such a forgiving woman, or at least she was in front of Richard as a child. He doubted Camille would be as forgiving if he ever forgot in the future.

Just after he got off the phone to his Mum, Camille wondered into the kitchen looking a little perplexed. “I thought you were making breakfast when you got up,” she said.

“Not yet,” Richard replied. She looked a little disappointed. “Oh were you hoping I’d be bringing it to you in bed? No such luck!” He joked, but then added, “I’ll bring you some toast or something if you want.”

“No, I’m awake now,” she said, a little huffily, sitting at the table.

“So toast?” he asked warily. She hadn’t been sleeping so well recently, and though he thought she’d been fine last night her testy mood was indicating otherwise. She gave a curt nod in response to his suggestion. “Did you sleep well?”

“I slept fine,” Camille said shortly. She started to look around the room expectantly. Richard decided his best bet was just to make her toast, and decaffeinated coffee, and hope she cheered up soon.

 

* * *

 

 

Camille continued to act a little off all morning. It was obvious to Richard that she wanted something, but whenever he asked her directly if he could get her anything she always gave a little shrug. At lunchtime she enquired about the dinner plans. “Um, well, we have those chicken fillets to use up. I assumed we’d do something with them.”

“Oh,” she said, not exactly overjoyed at the prospect.

“We can have something else if you want.”

She didn’t respond immediately, just looked thoughtful before saying mysteriously, “You know surprises probably aren’t good for me in my condition.”

Well, that confused him, “Ok, well, we can plan it now. But I am not sure not knowing what you are having for dinner 4 hours in advance counts as a surprise…”

She huffed again, “That isn’t what I was referring too!”

“Well what were you referring to?” He snapped, frustration at her bizarre behaviour finally getting the better of him.

“It’s Mother’s Day!”

“I _know_ ,” he said, feeling smug. “I sent Mum some flowers and called her this morning before you got up. I sent your Mother a gift as well!” He then sat back and waited to be praised.

“ _AND?_ ” Camille prompted, giving him a significant look.

“And I sent a card?” He tried. It was not the answer she was looking for.

“And what about _ME_?” She asked.

Oh. _Oh_. Her behaviour finally made sense. The expectation of breakfast in bed. The looking around expectantly as if there might be a card or present waiting for her. The enquiries about possible dinner plans. Of course next year, when the babies were actually here, he would have arranged something special but the idea that Camille might have been expecting something for Mother’s day this year had never occurred to him. He was now going to have to deal with the fallout of that mistake. It probably wasn’t going to be pretty.

“I, um,” he hesitated.

“You forgot about me, didn’t you?” She accused. The finger was out and everything.

“No, I didn’t _forget_ , I just didn’t think you would want to celebrate it this year!” He said in an attempt to defend himself. A useless attempt he knew before he even tried.  

“You didn’t _think_? Well that is just typically you! I suppose you do _think_ that somehow I am less of a mother just because the babies aren’t here yet? That I don’t deserve any acknowledgment for CARRYING YOUR CHILDREN?”

“I didn’t say that! I was just really stupid and I am very, very sorry!” Richard was desperate to end the argument as he was sure this _was_ something that wasn’t good for Camille in her current condition. She didn’t accept his apology though, instead she stood up abruptly and stormed from the room. “Where are you going?” He called after her desperately.

“I am going to see my Mother! Somebody who can actually appreciate how _special_ carrying a child is!” She slammed the front door, and Richard hurried after her. Once outside he saw she was getting into the car. “This _isn’t_ one of those fights where I want you to follow me!” She shouted, before reversing out of the drive.

Oh dear.

 

* * *

 

 

Richard figured he would be out of favour with Catherine once Camille arrived there, but his gift must have made some impression because she sent him a text message warning him he should probably give Camille a couple of hours to calm down. And then telling him that he should use that couple of hours to think long and hard about what he had done – or rather, failed to do. It left him unsure where he currently stood with both his wife and his Mother-in-law.

When in doubt, research. Richard was certain he was not the first man to mess up this way. Somewhere on the internet would be ideas for how he could make it up to Camille, surely? Though he supposed he would be better if he could come up with his own romantic gesture…Anyway, hardly in shops were open, the internet was his only hope of finding a gift as well.

 

* * *

 

 

Catherine clearly didn’t wish her daughter’s marriage to end, because after a couple of hours Richard received another message saying that Camille might be safe to approach. Richard wasn’t quite done finishing his sort of grand romantic gesture. It was actually another half hour before he was able to leave the house. He then remembered that Camille had taken the car, and was forced to go back in and call a taxi – it would take far too long to walk over there.

Camille was sitting on a corner table, sipping one of the virgin cocktails Catherine had started inventing once she learnt of her daughter’s pregnancy. They were actually proving quite popular with other customers. He slid into the seat opposite her, and pushed a folded piece of paper across the table at her.

“What’s that?” She asked without actually acknowledging his presence by looking at him.

“It’s a present. For you. For Mother’s day,” he said, nervously, worried she would refuse to even look at it. Curiosity got the better of her though, and she reached out and started to read it. “It’s a pregnancy spa day. You get a facial and a pedicure, lunch, use of the pool and something called a beautiful bump treatment, but please don’t ask me what that involves because I have no idea.” She didn’t say anything, keeping her eyes on the piece of paper. “You hate it, don’t you?”

“No, no, it’s a very thoughtful gift,” she said, actually looking at him again. “Shame you couldn’t have been more thoughtful _before_.”

“I know, I am sorry!” He said sincerely. She gave him a small smile and he knew he was forgiven for the most part now. “I have another surprise for you at home as well!”

“Oh!” She said, looking quite excited. “Let’s get back then!”

 

* * *

 

He sat Camille down at the kitchen table and then made her close her eyes, much to her amusement. “Richard, what are you doing?”

“I am getting the other part of your gift!” He said. “Keep your eyes closed.” He proudly placed his creation, the thing that had made him late to respond to Catherine’s message, down on the table in front of her. “Ok, you can look.”

She opened her eyes and then frowned, “What is it?”

“It’s a cheesecake!” He said, a little offended she didn’t get it straight away. “Your sweet cheesecake!”

“As opposed to a savoury cheesecake?”

“Hey, they exist!” He protested. Looking at the cheesecake again, he realised why Camille might not have realised what it was. All of the lovely chunks of mango he had put on top seemed to be slowly sinking in. “Oh no! It didn’t set properly!”

“Oh it doesn’t matter,” Camille said kindly. “I am sure it still tastes nice.”

“But cheesecake is your _favourite_ , that’s why I made it. You can hardly call this a cheesecake, can you?” he said, genuinely disappointed his desert had failed so miserably.

“Well, no, you probably can’t call it cheesecake. But we’ll rename it, um, mango cream crunch? Hey, this might become my favourite desert,” Camille said kindly. “I’m starving,” she said, sticking in a finger and licking off the cream cheese. “Mmm!”

“I’ll get a bowl,” Richard said.

“No, just get a spoon,” she said scooping more out on her fingers. Richard guessed she liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I have used some of these themes in “Baby Stuff” I confess…I needed to reuse the spa day though, it was the only way to get poor Richard out of trouble. Also, yes, I did write this whilst watching Eurovision…


	7. 16 Weeks

 

Two important things happened during the 16th week of Camille’s pregnancy. The first was that she started having trouble getting off the sofa. The couch at Camille’s house was very large, low and squishy. Truth be told, Richard found getting off of it a bit of an effort as well. It was the sort of sofa you often ended up falling asleep on because you couldn’t be bothered to get up and make your way to bed.

With her bump now getting bigger, Camille’s stomach muscles were affected. Richard had read in one of the books now laying around the house that the rectus abdominis muscles widen and stretch over the bump during pregnancy. The whole process sounded both fascinating and a bit nauseating, and of course greatly reduced the usefulness of Camille’s stomach muscles that were so essential to her getting off the sofa. It annoyed her greatly that she would need to ask for Richard’s help, especially at such an early stage of pregnancy, and he had on a few occasions found her in all sorts of positions attempting to get up by herself.

She wasn’t pleased with Richard when his reading then caused him to start suggesting ways she could avoid diastasis recti – a condition where the muscles fail to come back together after pregnancy. Considering the literature indicated there was an increased risk of this occurring in women pregnant with multiples, he thought it was a sensible idea for Camille to take precautions to try and avoid it.

Her initial reaction was a demonstration of surprising vulnerability, though given her mood changes he supposed it shouldn’t actual have surprised him, “Do you, um, think you’d be disappointed if that happened?” She asked, which confused him somewhat, then he realised that she was worried he didn’t like the changes to her body. Mind, he probably only realised that because it was mentioned in a different book lying about the house…

It was a question that needed a carefully thought out answer, unfortunately the time he took to construct that answer Camille interpreted as hesitation, “You think I’m getting fat and ugly don’t you?!”

“No! Of course not, I didn’t say that,” he hurried to reassure her. “I mean, weight gain during pregnancy is unavoidable…”

“So you _DO_ think I am getting fat!” She cried.

“Not _fat_ , just more…pregnant?” That caused her to pause, probably because it made very little sense. It gave him time to construct a better answer. “You are beautiful, Camille, honestly. The only reason I mentioned it was because I would hate for you to suffer after the pregnancy if there was any way we could prevent it, no other reason.”

Thankfully, she liked that answer.

 

* * *

 

 

The second thing that happened was not pregnancy related, though did ease some of the worries Richard had been having recently. Police officers were not entitled to maternity leave like other services, which meant their income would be reduced. A very official looking letter from The Met arrived one day, and Richard opened it to find to his complete surprise that it was informing him of his promotion to Detective Chief Inspector. The letter talked about his successes since arrival on Saint Marie and congratulated him on consistently delivering cases under budget – typical of The Met to concentrate on budgets as opposed to putting murderers away! The promotion came with a reasonable pay rise, obviously not enough to replace Camille’s lost earnings, but certainly far better than a kick in the teeth.

Camille had been delighted initially, proposing they throw a massive party with about half the island invited and possibly some fireworks. Eventually Richard talked her down to just some drinks at her Mother’s bar. And maybe a cake, largely because he did quite like cake. But no candles and certainly no sparklers. But after that initial burst of joy she seemed to become more despondent as the day went on. Eventually, that evening, sitting on the sofa she’d struggle to get off later, Richard asked her if there was anything the matter.

“No,” she said in that vague manner Richard had learnt meant she was hiding something. “Of course not.”

“Well, you know, um, you’ve been getting increasingly reserved today,” he pointed out.

“Well maybe I am just tired!”

“Okay,” he said, backing down. He then waited patiently for her to eventually confess what was bothering her. She lasted about two minutes.

“Look, obviously I’m really pleased about your promotion,” she began expectantly.

“Yes, I didn’t think you weren’t…” Though now he was starting to wonder.

“Well, I don’t want to detract from that in the slightest,” she began again. “But it sort of made realise something.”

“What?” He was forced to prompt when she didn’t continue.

“Well, when I started I sort of had these dreams I’d be a Chief Inspector one day…”

“I don’t think me making DCI means you are less likely to!” He interrupted. “I’ll be retiring 10 years before you, remember,” he said. Despite him saying it to comfort Camille, the thought at their age difference caused him to shudder. He didn’t actively like to contemplate it.

“Well, yes, I know it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility but, well, I’m going to be on maternity leave for at least 6 months and then probably have to work less hours because of the kids and, you know, in reality it will slow down the progress of my career…”

Richard bristled a little, “Camille, there are employment laws…”

“Don’t quote employment laws at me!” She said, sighing in frustration.

Richard didn’t like it but the truth was she was probably right. Especially if they didn’t stop at just the twins, something they hadn’t discussed yet. “Look, don’t get me wrong,” she continued. “I am really happy I am pregnant and of course I wanted to have children with you, it’s just that this is one aspect of my life changing that I hadn’t thought about before.”

“A lot of things are going to change,” he admitted. “But you know there are options. I could stay home and look after the kids, you know.”

“You would do that?” Camille asked brightly, sitting forward and looking quite eager. Truth be told, Richard had largely only offered as a supportive gesture. He didn’t think Camille would contemplate it seriously.

“Yes of course,” he said, trying to keep the reluctance out of his tone. If it came down to it, and it meant that much to her, he would actually be the one who stayed home. Though he was worried on behalf of their unborn children, the chances of him messing them up were a lot higher if he was the one who stayed at home – he was convinced of that.

“You aren’t just saying that? To make me feel better?” She asked insistently, shifting and taking hold of his hand.

“Of course I’m not!” He said, mentally reviewing the budget based on just Camille’s wage. He’d need to cash in a few ISA’s.

“Yes you are,” Camille said, smiling and sitting back. “But I appreciate the fact you would offer. I know we’ll be much better off on your wage alone than mine. But if I was the DCI I may well be accepting the offer!”

He tried not to look too relieved. “So, are you okay about the career thing now?”

“I will be,” she said. “I imagine once the babies are here I won’t even remember I was concerned about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, two chapters in 2 days, nobody ever said my muse made any sense!


	8. 21 weeks

 

They missed the first appointment they made for the twenty week scan – the scan the NHS website referred to as the anomaly scan, a word that made Richard feel very nervous about the whole thing. They missed it for the same reason they missed/were late for most things these days: Camille’s hormones. Except rather than Richard have to constantly tread carefully, in continuous fear of some mood swing that could cause her to beat him to death with a frying pan, Camille was now always in a good mood. A very good mood. The sort of mood that required his particular attentions, _all the time_.

Richard had always had a vague insecurity that being ten years older than Camille, he wouldn’t be able to keep up with her in bed. So far it hadn’t proved to be an issue – he assumed Camille wasn’t going easy on him or anything. She had always seemed pretty satisfied on that front. And it wasn’t like they hadn’t enjoyed some pretty long sessions in the past, but they tended to be nicely spaced out – now Camille was in need of that level of attention nearly every day.

On the morning of her scan Richard woke to find Camille giving him the sort of wolfish grin that could mean only one thing. He protested mildly, trying to remind her of the fact they had already slept in a little late (a result of having been up until 1 am the night before) and they were rather limited on time before they had to leave. It wasn’t long though until her mouth was doing things that made Richard forget all about the appointment. Afterwards, Camille thoroughly satisfied and Richard feeling pretty good himself, they both ended up falling asleep and not waking until past 10. They had slept through the entirety of the appointment.

There was a little grovelling with the clinic to get another appointment quickly. Eventually, largely to stop the lecture he was receiving from the midwife about wasting tax payers money, Richard asked about paying privately for a 3D ultrasound. This had the effect of immediately turning her to sweetness and light. Richard knew the technology, despite being around for quite a while, wasn’t usually used routinely but he had an odd sort of desire to see it in action. Though he wasn’t quite sure how he would explain the cost to Camille – he didn’t think the thing offered that many additional benefits. Except, apparently, being more accurate at predicting gender.

 

* * *

 

 

Richard ensured the next scan was timed for a little later in the morning. He decided to avoid Camille delaying them by dragging him back to bed by once again plying her with liquids to ensure a full bladder for the scan. Surely nobody would want to make love with a full bladder. But Camille had turned despondent again, realising that today they had the chance to find out the sex of the babies – a decision they still hadn’t come to a conclusive decision on. She had been right all those weeks ago when she feared this would be the case. Camille just kept changing her mind, and Richard couldn’t bring himself to try to influence her decision. He really would be happy with whatever she decided to go with. If she ever decided that was.

In the car she said, really quite firmly, “I want to know the sex of the babies.”

“Excellent, right, well we’ll tell them at the start of the scan then!”

“Yes,” she said. “I mean, I don’t want to just have to buy yellow and white clothes. I want to know if we need pink. Or blue. Or maybe pink _and_ blue!”

“I…” Richard began, but then stopped, fearing his statement might set out one of her moods. Camille wasn’t going to let him get away with that though.

“You what?”

“I, um, just didn’t think you were the sort of woman who’d want to do the whole blue and pink thing. Gender stereotypes and all that.”

“What’s wrong with pink?” She snapped, confirming Richard was right in trying to avoid saying it. “Just because I might want to dress a little girl in pink doesn’t mean I’ll be forcing her to do ballet rather than learn the drums, or putting a boy in a blue onesie means I’d go mental if he picked up a doll!”

“Of course it doesn’t, it was stupid thing to say!” Richard hoped to prevent a full blown argument by apologising sincerely and early. “I’m really sorry, Camille.”

“And anyway, it’s a visual clue for people!” She continued to rant. “It is impossible to tell the sex of a baby from their face, it stops people having to guess and being embarrassed when they guess wrong.”

“I had never thought of it from that point of view before,” he admitted honestly. “You’re absolutely right.”

“Well you wouldn’t,” she grumbled, before turning to stare out of the window. Richard supposed that was him told.

 

* * *

 

 

“So,” the sonographer said after greeting them warmly. “Are we finding out the sex of the babies today?”

Richard had expected Camille to answer immediately and eagerly, but there was a pause, so he opened his mouth to respond, “Ye-“

“NO!” Camille said loudly over the top of him. Turning to him, she said, “I don’t want to know. I’ve decided, for sure this time. I want the surprise, of hearing somebody shout ‘It’s a boy’ or ‘It’s a girl’, do you understand?”

Richard nodded, “Yes, of course, that’s fine!”

The sonographer was giving them a patient smile. “Lots of couples actually change their minds when they get in here. I did myself!”

 

* * *

 

 

The 3D scan was pretty awesome. When the sonographer had gotten around to scanning the region around the groins of the babies Camille had made him turn around. “I know you!” She had said firmly. “You’ve read so many textbooks by now you could probably tell the sex of the babies yourself!” Richard wasn’t quite that was true, but now he wasn’t going to get the chance to find out.

Because they were paying privately, they even got a DVD to take home with them. Richard wasn’t quite sure how often it would get watched once they had the actual babies but, it could be pulled out for birthdays and educational purposes. A DVD to help answer that inevitable question about where babies come from. Richard had been told he had never shown any interest in the answer to that question and had been absolutely horrified as a small boy when he overheard some older kids talking about it. He wasn’t sure if English reserve was an inheritable trait, or learnt, but either way there was a risk the children would get it from him. But then again they could get their Mother’s extrovert nature, and run around kissing everybody they meet. Or perhaps they would be somewhere between the two – or one would be like Camille and one like Richard.

Oh God, why had he ever started on this train of thought?

 

* * *

 

 

By the end of the next Sunday afternoon, Richard knew he has been defeated. Camille hadn’t let him leave bed yet, except to fetch her some orange juice, and he was exhausted. There was quite simply no way he was capable of another round that he feared she might want. He had avoided the topic too long, and had to say something.

“You’re going to have to leave me for another man,” was how he chose to broach the topic. Of course such a drastic statement rather blindsided Camille, who was currently cuddled up to him stroking her belly and humming softly like some pregnancy cliché. She stopped the humming and shifted to look at him.

“What?”

“I’m sorry Camille I just can’t keep up with you anymore. You are insatiable.” He explained. “I would really _like_ to be able to keep up with you but without medical intervention I don’t think it is going to happen and I may well need medical intervention if I keep trying. Good Lord, I am probably the only man on the island, perhaps even the world, who wishes his wife _would_ get a headache!”

“What if I made you a sandwich?” She asked, and he almost groaned but then realised she was only teasing him. “Don’t worry, I think I am quite done for the day.”

“But what about tomorrow?” He whined.

“You want me to give you tomorrow off?” Camille asked, frowning. “I don’t think we’ve been having _that_ much sex Richard.”

“Just think back over the last couple of weeks,” he pleaded with her.

He watched her face and she mentally reviewed their recent activities and noted the dawning realisation. “I knew my hormones would affect my sex drive but I hadn’t realised it would be to this extent…” She paused and then added, “Of course you can have tomorrow off.”

Richard wasn’t quite sure that would be enough time…


	9. 24 weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short fluffy sort of chapter.

Over the next few weeks Camille did ease off in her demands for physical attention. As her bump grew, she seemed to become a lot softer, a lot calmer and a big affectionate mess really. Richard was quite fond of this version of Camille – but he also missed his feisty wife as well. He’d always enjoyed their more passionate arguments – especially the way they tended to end.

They were currently curled up together in bed, whilst Richard traced the stretch marks on her stomach. Richard knew that Camille wasn’t particularly happy with them – even though at the same time she acknowledged it was a natural part of pregnancy. He had already caught her flicking through magazine articles, reading features about how to reduce stretch marks. Richard himself had gone online and confirmed what he suspected – that most of those products were just expensive moisturisers. He’d then made a very poor attempt to try and boost her self-esteem with a little speech about how these changes didn’t bother him, but about half way through Camille burst into a fit of giggles, wrapped her arms around him and kissed him thoroughly.

“I appreciate the effort, Richard, but I do know that,” she said, stroking his face. That had then led to them to their current situation.

“I think it was the time after you took me out for dinner,” she said suddenly. Richard had no idea what she was talking about.

“Sorry?” He said, hoping that would be enough to prompt her to explain.

“I think that is when we conceived the babies,” she replied. Now she said Richard remembered the incident, he was unlikely to ever forget actually – it was one of his favourite memories, if a little hazy because quite a lot of wine had been involved.  

“We never actually talked about _how_ that happened,” he suddenly realised. In all of the excitement it had slipped his mind that in theory they shouldn’t have been able to get pregnant. “I mean, weren’t you on the Pill?”

Camille shoved her face into his chest and he felt her grimace. Clearly she had figured out how this pregnancy had come about, and was hoping he wouldn’t ever ask. Eventually she gave a small sigh and began, “Well, you know how you take the Pill for 21 days and then you take a 7 day break?” She said. He nodded – Richard had a tendency to read the entire explanatory leaflet that came with any drugs, and that included the ones for Camille’s contraceptives. Much to her amusement. He couldn’t believe it was called “Cilest” – it sounded like a ridiculous name for a contraceptive. “Well, after that 7 days break I sort of forgot to re-start it for 2 days…” It was his turn to give a sigh. “Hey!” Camille said, sounding defensive. “We were weeks away from the wedding, it was a very busy time and there was a lot going on!”

“I know, I’m not blaming you. It’s just one of those things, though we might want to think about how we can avoid that situation in the future,” he said, trying to be reasonable.

“You know what is strange?” Camille said. He gave her a look to indicate she should tell him, “It’s actually how my mother got pregnant with me.”

“She _told_ you that you were an accident?” Richard asked, aghast. He had no intention of the twins ever finding out they were unplanned – he didn’t want them to feel unwanted.

“Honestly, Richard, do you think my Mother would call me an accident?” Camille asked, giving him a hard stare. He was forced to admit that seemed unlikely. “She only told me recently when I told her how I thought I got pregnant, and she referred to it as a surprise pregnancy. Which I think is a much nicer term.”

“Well, I’m glad she forgot – because I don’t know what my life would be like without you,” He said, dropping a kiss on to the top of her head. “And I’m happy you forgot as well – sure maybe it’s a little more stressful this way around but it’s going to work out.”

“So, do you think it was then as well?”

“What was when?”

“When we conceived the babies. I did some maths, it seems like it could be a possibility,” Camille said, counting on her fingers as if she was trying to confirm her sums were correct. “Though it could be a few days either side I guess.”

“Does it really matter?” He asked.

“Yes!” She said, sitting up and looking at him. “I want it to have been romantic. Children should be conceived out of acts of love, don’t you think so?”

What Richard thought was that this was a conversation he would rather not have. Any conversation about sex is one he would rather not have – he much preferred the wordless agreements they seemed to manage to come to most of the time. “Well,” he began awkwardly. “Aren’t they _all_ acts of love?” He hoped that Camille would just agree and that would put an end to the conversation.

“Yeah but some _are_ more acts of love than others,” She said, with a single raised eyebrow. This just caused Richard to blush. “I’d rather it was the time after we went to dinner, rather than when we…”

“Then it was the time after dinner!” Richard said loudly.

“What, you don’t want me to say the word quickie?” Camille teased him. “I can’t believe you are still such a prude after all this time.”

“Camille! Your 24 weeks, the babies can hear now.”

“And you think they can understand?” She said, giving him an amused look and causing Richard to realise what a stupid statement it was. He tried to think a way to recover.

 “Um, well, it is never too early to practise watching what we say in front of them,” he offered weakly.

She just shook her head at him, but seemed willing to let it go.  “Ok,” she agreed. “No talking about sex in front of the babies. Presumably we’ll have to stop having sex as well,” she added.

Richard felt panic rising, “I didn’t…mean to imply, um, I’m not sure…What I am trying to say that, in a relationship, I, um…” Once again, he was successful in inducing a fit of giggles in his wife that was followed up by a very thorough kiss.


	10. 26 Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much just slice of life and fluff in my world at the moment

 

Richard looked down at the piles of wood that would, the instructions promised, assemble into cots and made a realisation. “We aren’t going to move before the babies are born, are we?” He said to Camille, who was carefully applying tiny stickers with letters on them to the various parts of the cots so they would know what they were.

“We might do,” She replied.

“Camille we haven’t even _looked_ at any houses since I moved in,” He pointed out. “We might as well accept this is where we will be bringing up the babies for a while.”

She sighed. “I guess you are right,” she admitted. “But that probably isn’t a bad thing. I have always loved this place.”

“Well this room might have been big enough to hold one child until they were a toddler but two, I’m not so sure…” In fact, if he stretched out both arms, Richard could touch both walls. Fine for a nursery for the moment, but it looked like a move with two small children was definitely in their future. It was not a thought he relished.

“Oh Richard half the island will turn up to help us move when it comes to it,” Camille said, as if she had read his mind. “I wouldn’t worry too much. And by the way we are helping my friend Lisa move next weekend.”

“ _We_?” Richard said, pointedly staring at her bump.

“Hey! I can still help, I’ll just be in more of an organisational role,” She gave him such a cheeky grin that he couldn’t help but return it with a smile of his own. It was hardly the first time he had found himself volunteered to do something by Camille, he doubted it would be the last either.

“You know what else we haven’t talked about yet?” She said next, pausing from her task and staring at a screw contemplatively. It appeared not to look like any of the pictures in the instructions. “Names.”

She was right – somehow it hadn’t come up at all. “Well we better start soon, some couples take ages and they aren’t expecting twins. We need twice the number of names!”

“Speaking of number of names…” Camille said, sounding a little nervous. “Um, will they have to have _quite_ as many names as you do?” Richard could understand her concern – his five names were actually over the average of 4 for most aristocratic babies.

“Well, that might be the advantage of the twins,” Richard said thoughtfully. “We can sort of split the names we have to use between them.”

“What do you mean, names we _have_ to use?” Camille asked, looking at him sharply. Perhaps Richard should have been more delicate in his phrasing – now Camille would feel like the traditional names he was referring to were being forced upon her. That wasn’t the case, though he suspected his Father might be disappointed if certain boys names weren’t utilised.

“Of course I don’t mean we _have_ to use them, but there are certain names that run in my family that I would like to be used if possible,” he explained.

“Like what?” Camille said – she looked and sounded like she didn’t quite believe him. Richard reckoned he had the perfect example to calm her down though.

“Well, for example, I would appreciate if Peter was used as either a first or middle name. You know, after my Uncle Peter – Dad’s older brother who died,” Richard said. “I spent many a summer in Euston Hall with Uncle Peter and it would be nice to honour his memory that way.” No need to mention that every single Duke of Grafton (with the exception of his Father, since he had inherited from his older brother) had ‘Peter’ in their name somewhere.

The story had the desired effect, and Camille immediately softened. “Well _of course_ we can use the name Peter. In fact I quite like it as a name, though I prefer the French _Pierre_ ,” She added. Richard swallowed hard, trying to imagine his Father’s reaction if he was presented with a grandson called _Pierre_. But then to his relief Camille continued, “But that wasn’t actually your Uncle’s name so I suppose it wouldn’t be the same, so we won’t use that. So Peter as a first name then?”

“Um, well, if you like it as a first name that would be great!” He said brightly. “You didn’t have anything else in mind?”

“Well, truth be told, my first choices were Casper or…”

She didn’t get to mention her other choice, because Richard interrupted her with a disbelieving, “Casper?” She nodded, not really understanding his shock. “As in, Casper the friendly ghost?”

“No, as in Casper, one of the three Magi,” she corrected him. “Who the hell is Casper the friendly ghost?”

“You can’t be seriously suggesting you’ve never heard of Casper the friendly ghost?” Richard asked her. “It seems highly unlikely any cultural reference could exist that I have heard of and you haven’t.”

“Well this must be some sort of exception to prove the rule, because I don’t know what you are talking about,” Camille told him firmly. “Though I am rather assuming it means you are saying no to Casper,” she added, a little grumpily.

“It was a cartoon – but it is quite an old one now I guess,” Richard explained. “There is a chance people don’t associate the name with that anymore. Perhaps we should test awareness amongst young people. It might be an idea with all the names actually, in case there is anything we’ve missed.”

“Are you seriously suggesting we conduct a survey amongst teenagers to assess any negative associations the names we pick might have?”

“You don’t want our children to be teased, do you?” Richard asked.

Camille gave him a sympathetic look. She knew how much he had suffered in school – his intelligence always making him very much the odd one out, but it was clear she thought his suggestion was an overreaction. “Richard, we might find names that are fine at the moment, but it doesn’t mean some cultural phenomenon won’t occur whilst the babies are still young. I was friends with a Sabrina in high school and she suffered terribly.”

Richard frowned, “Why?”

Camille gave a small sigh, “Sabrina the teenage witch?”

“No clue,” he admitted. “See what I mean about the unlikeliness of me knowing about Casper the friendly ghost and you not?”

“Well, for reasons unknown it passed me buy. So is Casper in or out as a name?”

Richard mulled it over for a moment, “I’m fine with it as a _middle_ name…”

“So Peter Casper?” Camille suggested. “The other name I like but you didn’t give me the chance to suggest is Julian.”

“Oh I like Julian!” said Richard brightly, though he did not explain that this was because he was addicted to _The Famous Five_ as a child. “Julian would be fine for a first name.”

“So we’d have Peter Casper and Julian something?”

“Well I’d like to get George in as well if I could, for my Father. So how about Peter George and Julian Casper?”

“But then what if we only have one boy, which of the names would we use then?”

“Um, well we could have Peter George Casper?” Richard suggested, scratching his head.

“I want Richard in there somewhere!” Camille suddenly demanded. “A boy should have his father’s name as well.” Actually, that was tradition in their family with the first born, but one Richard was willing to let go of.

“Ok well it could be Peter George Richard and Julian Casper, um, some other name – possibly Arthur, that’s another big name in the family, if there are two boys. And then if it is one we’ll go back to Peter George Casper…”

Camille held a hand up to cut him off. “I think we might need to write this down,” she suggested sensibly. Accepting the project to construct the cribs was essentially abandoned for the day, Richard rose to fetch his favourite notebook.

 

* * *

 

 

It took them a good 2 hours to hash out what combination of names would be used in the event of one boy or two. The use of Richard’s own name proved to be a bit of a sticking point as he wasn’t particularly bothered but Camille had become insistent that it be included in their somewhere. As a consequence, if they only had the one boy he was going to end up with as many names as Richard, despite Camille’s initial hints that she would prefer that not to be the case. He sort of hoped they ended up with two boys or two girls to avoid that situation.

Camille looked exhausted by the whole conversation. They were sitting on the floor, with Camille now sprawled against a wall and looking like she might not ever be able to move again. Various bits of paper had been torn off and spread on the floor around with different name combinations written on them, initials underneath just to make sure they weren’t inadvertently spelling out a word with all those initials.

Camille yawned and Richard shot her a sympathetic look, “Want me to help you up so you can have a lie down?”

“No, no,” she said, waving him off. “We still have the girls’ names to discuss.”

“Oh we don’t have to do that now, we can discuss it another time,” he reassured her.

Camille just shook her head and said, “No, go on, tell me what girls’ names are traditional in your family!”

Oh well that was an easy question to answer. “Oh we don’t have any traditional female names,” he said honestly.

It seemed to take a moment for this to sink in. Then Camille looked up at him with narrowed eyes and asked slowly and carefully, “ _Why not?_ ”

Uh oh. This was going to take some explaining.


	11. 26 weeks continued

She didn’t actually let him even draw breath to start the explanation. “This is because the girls don’t inherit titles, isn’t it?” She accused him, finger out poking him in the chest. “I suppose the aristocratic traditions don’t extend to those poor females! Every girl born is probably just a bit of a disappointment.”

“No!” He cried, actually a bit offended by her attitude. “It’s just…well…”

“Well what?”

“There aren’t any traditional names because, well, um, there haven’t been that many girls.” He paused and watched her carefully as she absorbed this information. Her forehead creased in confusion, something Richard thought was cute but he knew Camille had been making an effort to avoid doing because she thought she was getting wrinkles. Unfortunately, being married to him seemed to have actually increased the amount of time she spent confused, usually the frowning occurred when he was trying to explain some intricate social rule.

“What do you mean?” She asked eventually.

“Well, you see, the last girl who was born in my direct line was, oh, 1835…” She just stared at him. “I mean, I think there were a couple of Poole women born after that. I am pretty sure one of my Great Uncle’s had a girl, Martina that was her name!” He said brightly, glad he had remembered her existence. There may be a couple of other female cousins as well if he got out the old family tree.  There was some other fact about Martina as well he was forgetting, oh yes… “Though people did always say she looked rather like the Marquess of Bath, and Great Aunt Florence did used to spend an awful lot of time visiting Longleat…”

Richard wished he hadn’t admitted that, because now Camille was scowling, “Are you telling me the last female you can remember was probably the illegitimate daughter of some Marquess, and the one before that was born _two hundred years ago_!”

“Well not quite two…” He didn’t finish, because Camille was giving him a look that indicated not was not the time to be pedantic.

She suddenly looked defeated, “I didn’t even think that was statistically possible. Obviously all I want is for them to be healthy first of all, but if I’m truthful, I sort of do want one of them to be a girl.”

“Well the chances _are_ very small, you’re right,” he said, coming to sit down next to her and placing an arm around her shoulders. “So I wouldn’t _assume_ we aren’t ever going to have a girl. And you know what, if we do, not having any traditional female names is to our advantage. We can start our own traditions.” She leaned into him. “You know, I think you would have liked Lady Elsbeth. She was the last female fathered by one of the Dukes of Grafton.”

“She didn’t look oddly like some Marquess then?”

“No, no, if my memory serves I believe that the 4th Duke of Grafton and his wife the lady Duchess were rather devoted to each other. They had eleven children you know.”

Camille stiffened somewhat in his arms, “That isn’t something we are aiming for, is it?”

“God, no,” Richard reassured her. “We’ll stop when you say stop.”

“So go on then,” Camille, said, shuffling around, a grimace of her face indicating she was struggling to get comfortable. Richard leapt up (as fast as he could leap at his age) and went and fetched her some pillows from the bedroom. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I was going to ask what about this Elsbeth woman I’d like.”

“Ah, Well, Elsbeth was a rather…strong minded individual. The only girl out of those eleven children. She was amongst the first woman to go to what would later be Girton College at Cambridge University, studied natural sciences and mathematics. Of course back then, women could sit the exams, but they didn’t actually get _given_ the degree – just a nice handshake and a well done. But she went anyway, she was determined. In fact she was rather responsible for our family switching to Cambridge, we’d always gone to Oxford before.”

“Hmmm,” Camille said, sounding more sleepy than interested.

“Her father didn’t exactly approve, but he was proud of her for finishing. She did better in the exams than some of her brothers. Of course once she had finished, she was expected to come home and do what women of her position were expected to do – form a good marriage.”

“Let me guess – she refused? Decided to go off on adventures as a strong, single woman?” Camille guessed.

“Oh no, she got married, had 6 children.”

“Right,” said Camille. “Well that story ended abruptly.”

“Hey, I didn’t say she married _desirably_ ,” Richard teased. “The 4th Duke of Grafton had spent considerable time arranging for her to spend time amongst the Duke of Kent’s sons. He was hoping she would find a suitor amongst them. The Duke was a great fan of fishing and was rather hoping that he might get the rights to certain rivers with the marriage.”

“He was going to make her marry somebody so he could go _fishing_?” Camille asked, aghast.

“Well, to be fair to him, I am sure the fact it was a very good family who would be sure to have the means to provide for her was taken into account as well!” Richard said in defence of his ancestor.

“I’m assuming Elsbeth did not marry one of the sons?”

“Oh no, she met a young man on her course. One whom she fell utterly in love with, so the stories go, and they eloped. It was not the best match, his people had money but were tradespeople, not usually considered suitable for the daughter of a Duke.”

“How very scandalous! Did your family disown her?” Camille definitely sounded interested now.

“Well, that was what was expected to be sure. But the Duchess convinced her husband not too. And he had always had a soft spot for Elsbeth.”

“Well, glad to hear it, I mean tradespeople can’t be _that_ bad and they had the money to send him to Cambridge!” Camille pointed out sensibly. “So they must have had the means to look after her as well.”

“Well, actually, the tradespeople bit wasn’t the worst bit. It was that his mother was French,” Richard said seriously.

Camille pulled away from him and gave him a look, “You _are_ kidding!”

“I’m not,” he said with a grin. “She married somebody who was half French. And she didn’t just settle down, either, she spent a considerable amount of time running about London providing aid to women of…loose morals as they would have said then. Tried to help those who wanted out, and I think they ended up paying for the education of three children whose mother’s died in childbirth.”

“Well you’re right,” said Camille. “I do like her. She sounds a little _too_ good to be true actually, like a heroine out of a novel.”

“Well she probably had her bad points, but history has not seen fit to preserve them. But I wouldn’t mind if we had a daughter who turned out like her.”

“We should use that name,” Camille said after a thoughtful pause. “If we have a girl, or two girls, one of them should have Elsbeth in their name. In memory of her.”

“Dad will love that, he’s big on family history. I like the idea too, but are you sure it isn’t too old fashioned sounding?” Camille shook her head. Richard pulled a blank piece of A4 paper towards them and wrote the name down. “Then I guess we have a place to start.”


	12. 28 Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I seemed to have slowed down on the old writing front!

Camille woke in the middle of the night to find Richard, wide awake, his head balanced on her stomach as if he was trying to listen to the twins. “What are you doing?” She whispered, uncertain why since they were both awake and nobody else was in the house.

“I think one of them has the hiccups,” he responded.

Camille, now she was more awake, became aware of a series of rhythmic vibrations that didn’t feel like the normal movements of the babies. She frowned, “Is that normal?”

“Yes, perfectly normal,” Richard said. His tone wasn’t exactly reassuring though, more flat and distracted. Camille got the feeling he had some serious worries on his mind.

“Richard,” she said gently. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he said – that automatic English response that had driven her mad on many an occasion. “Everything’s fine.”

“Then why are you awake in the middle of the night with your head pressed to my belly?” She asked - there was no way Richard could have heard the hiccups sleeping next to her, he probably only noticed them because of his proximity now. He remained silent – Camille wasn’t sure if it was unwillingness to answer or if he was just gathering his thoughts. “Richard,” she prodded gently.

“He didn’t mean to,” Richard said suddenly. “My father.”

“He didn’t mean to what?” Camille asked, wondering if some great Poole family secret was about to be revealed. She hoped her Father-in-law wasn’t a murderer, it could be awkward at their next meeting. Or perhaps he used to smuggle stuff in is diplomatic bag when he worked for the Foreign office. Or perhaps she was letting her imagination run away with her.

“And really, you should have met my Grandfather,” Richard continued, not enlightening her in the slightest about his earlier statement. Camille, in a fit of paranoia probably induced by pregnancy hormones and her sleep being interrupted, had a sudden intense fear that Richard was about to confess that fits of insanity ran along the male line in his family. She was sure she’d read somewhere about rare genetic disorders running in royal families somewhere... “I only did half a dozen times, he died in a car accident when I was still quite young, but he left a hell of an impression. My Uncle Peter had it the worst though, very much so.”

Camille was too afraid to ask any clarifying questions. It was so difficult to get Richard to talk about things that bothered him emotionally, and now he was, even though it didn’t entirely make sense. It was best just to let him keep talking and hope all would become clear. “In what way did he have it worse?” She decided to try asking, since he had gone rather quiet again.

“My grandfather made it very clear he was disappointed that he had not married. And that every year that went by he was failing his family, he felt Uncle Peter should have just married any old woman just to produce an heir. Which was never going to happen, Uncle Peter didn’t like women. Or at least that is the impression I have picked up over the years from family whispers.”

“He was gay?” Camille asked directly.

“Yeah, he was, though nobody ever said those things out loud back then. I think Grandfather knew deep down and it didn’t exactly ingratiate him towards Uncle Peter. So you can see, my Father was far better than his.”

“Well of course,” Camille agreed immediately, though mentally she was thinking there were a fair few things he could have done differently when Richard was a child. Little did she know that Richard was thinking along the same lines.

“So I know he did better, loads better, than his Dad. And I know he didn’t mean to be, you know, distant and stuff – but he was.” Camille remained quiet, having guessed where this might be going. Honestly, she had expected this panic a lot earlier on. She thought back on the day, wondering if anything in particular might have triggered it, but drew a blank. No doubt all these worries had been swirling around in his mind for ages, and now it had come to ahead. “What if I think I’m doing well, because I remember to tell them I love them occasionally, and I don’t act disappointed if they get a B in French. But they think I’m still a rubbish Father, because I can’t be the complete ‘modern man’. I’m just…it isn’t me.”

Richard’s head was still on her massive bump, the baby had quietened down now – hiccups suppressed as if he or she knew the seriousness of the moment. Richard, even now, was very rarely this vulnerable with her. He still had a tendency to glance around to make sure nobody was looking too closely before kissing her in public – even though such kisses usually consisted of not much more than a peck on the lips. “Richard,” she said now. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

He sat up now, and to her surprise he seemed almost annoyed at her for her attempts at reassurance. Frowning, he said, “You don’t have to humour me, Camille. I know you are only saying that to try and make me feel better.”

“When do I ever lie to you to make you feel better?” She countered.

He thought about it for a moment, “You told me those biscuits I made for you were nice.”

“Well, they were nice.”

He gave her a look, “Camille, I forgot to put sugar in them!”

“Oh they tasted disgusting, I meant it was nice of you to make them for me.” She continued to be in receipt of the aforementioned look. “Oh come on Richard, that was different, it was only are third date and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Just like you don’t want to hurt my feelings now,” he pointed out, and probably would have been rather smug if there wasn’t such an air of anxiety about him.  

“Look, you _should_ have asked me _why_ you don’t have to worry about it,” Camille told him.

“Fine,” he conceded. “Why shouldn’t I be worried?”

“Because I’m not going to let you get away with it.” Apparently that was not explanation enough, as he just looked at her blankly. “Richard, how many times have I dropped a hint to you about encouraging Fidel or dealing with a suspect?”

“A lot.” No hesitation.

“So do you honestly think it would be different _for our children_?” She continued. “If I think you are being too distant, or not supportive enough, I will be telling you and you will modify your behaviour accordingly.”

“Oh,” Richard said. “I suppose you would.”

“Suppose?”

“Ok,” he said, a small smile forming on his face as he began to relax. “I know you will.” She smiled back at him. “We’ll be ok, won’t we?”

“Of course we will,” she told him. “Now can we go back to sleep? I need my rest, I am carrying your children you know!”

“Of course,” he said, settling back down.

“Oh one more thing,” she said. “Actually two more things. There is no way either of these babies is ever getting a B in French, and we’ll deal with the fact you apparently learnt French in school later.” Camille did think that last statement might cause Richard a little more sleeplessness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is rather long!


	13. 32 Weeks Part A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised I should have addressed something much earlier on, so I am fixing it here with flashbacks! I think Camille might be a bit out of character, which presumably I can blame on pregnancy hormones rather than my own poor writing skills. Yes, pregnancy hormones…Actually we don’t really have much to go on about the way Camille would feel about pregnancy, except the sense she might want children one day, and the fact that she has a much more spiritual side to her personality, and a connectedness to nature, than Richard. Which is really what I am trying to reflect here and in the next chapter.

Thirty two weeks saw them heading to the hospital for another scan – they’d been having them every two weeks since 28 weeks. This was to make sure the babies were both ‘sharing nicely’ as the midwife put it. Richard generally preferred technical language rather than twee language that seemed to be employed by midwives and sonographers on the island, but he supposed most mother’s preferred it. Nobody wants to feel like pregnancy is a medical condition that requires treatment…even though it sort of is.

The two of them weren’t going to be late for this appointment, they had both been up since half four due to the continuous jostling of the twins keeping Camille very much awake, and by extension Richard. At first, it had been quite novel, the two of them had never quite been this active before. They were running out of room in there, and should be getting to the positions they would need to be in for delivery, Richard wondered if that was what they were attempting now. He and Camille had spent half an hour balancing small things on her bump and watching one of the babies shift or kick it off. They even played a game of asking questions, and interpreting a big kick as a ‘yes’. They wouldn’t be sticking to the responses though, since as a joke Richard had started asking they wanted to be named after famous twins from history – and had gotten a ‘yes’ kick for the founders of Rome.

“What if we had two girls?” Camille had teased him. Richard was pleased for further confirmation that Camille hadn’t given up hope of having a girl.  

“Well change it from Romulus and Remus to…um, Roma and Reema?” He suggested. She just shook her head fondly at him.

But Camille’s good mood didn’t last long. Eventually one of the babies shifted and suddenly the kicks (or possibly punches) were being delivered to her ribs. Each proved painful to her, and she started to poke her stomach, shifting about in an effort to get the babies into a more comfortable position. But they were having none of it. Camille had told him he should go sleep on the sofa, there was no reason they should both be short of sleep, but Richard felt too guilty to leave her suffering on her own. They gave up at six and got up.

The return trip to the sonography department also saw the return of an ongoing argument…not about the sex of the babies, but about the way they would be born. They had worked out most of the details, thankfully…

 

* * *

 

_16 weeks earlier_

It simply wasn’t practical for Richard to attend _every_ medical appointment with Camille, not when they made up a significant proportion of the Saint Marie police force. The debate about what to do once she went on maternity leave, which was rapidly approaching, had finally be solved though – they were getting another seconded from the UK, West Midlands Police on this occasion. They were a new DC and the experience would be good for them, but they didn’t arrive for a month yet. So Camille did her best to schedule appointments early in the morning, or towards the end of the day – times which would be the least disruptive to the job. After one of her regular appointments with the midwife, Richard came home to find Camille intently studying some leaflets.

“What on earth is hypnobirthing?” He asked after kissing her hello. The leaflet was discarded on the other side of the table, it looked like it had been rejected.

“A self-hypnosis technique,” Camille said dismissively, still reading her current leaflet. “Designed to help women give birth without any pain relief. But the cost of the course is huge, and the nearest one is Dominique as well.”

“Not to mention the fact that it is a load of rubbish!”

That statement caught Camille’s attention, she turned a stern look on him, “Hypnosis is _real_ , and a valuable technique. We had a psychologist in Paris able to get witnesses to remember vast amounts of detail using it. And my friend Sharon used it to lose 20 kilos!”

“There is a difference between recalling memories that are there are ignoring searing pain,” he pointed out. Camille levelled him with a look, deciding that an argument would not be good for the babies, he conceded, “But I am sure it has helped women before. What did you discuss with the midwife today?”

“We discussed the need to pin down a birth plan as early as possible,” she told him. Richard nodded, he knew with twins things were always a little more complicated. “She was pleased when I told her I’d be having them in the hospital. Personally I think Juliet was brave to have Rosie at home. I’ve been given a hell of a lot of reading material, there is some specific stuff about multiple births in here somewhere…”

Another nod of agreement, then he added, “You wouldn’t really need hypnobirthing anyway, I mean if you don’t have a caesarean you’ll be getting an epidural, won’t you?” He said, sitting down. “A planned caesarean is probably a good idea, avoid the complications of you going into labour when I am not around, I can book time off work.”

Camille looked up sharply, and Richard had a sudden feeling of impending doom, “You _want_ me to have a caesarean?”

“After careful consideration,” he began, and it was careful he had read extensively about it. “I personally feel that a caesarean is both a very safe option for the delivery of the twins, with added benefits of being able to have some control of their arrival time.”

There, a perfectly reasonable argument, she couldn’t possibly object to that?

“And you just made this decision without consulting me?” She snapped.

“No, no, no, no, no!” He hurried to say. “This is me consulting you now! You know me, I’ve just done a lot of reading and this in the past week, and you know how I am. I was waiting for you to bring the topic up!”

Richard suppressed a sigh of relief as he saw Camille relax. “Well _I_ haven’t had a chance to do all this reading yet. Just give me a chance to go through all of the information and then we’ll have a chat about it, ok?”

 

* * *

 

_14 weeks earlier_

Camille collapsed down next to him on the sofa, rubbing her growing bump fondly. “Forty percent of twin are born vaginally!” She said as an opener. Richard blinked but his brain confirmed her had heard correctly. It seemed the birthing plan debate was open again.

“Yes, I believe so,” he said, waiting for her to expand.

“That’s what I want to do,” she told him. “I mean, as long as when the time comes it is safe to do so.”

Richard had suspected as much. Camille was sensible about accepting medical intervention when it was needed, but not to the same extent as Richard, who would take anything a Doctor threw at him. But then he’d always been a wimp when sick or in pain – he suspected Camille was much better at coping at that kind of thing. What with being shot twice, and all. “There is a quicker release time, as well,” she continued. “And a much faster recovery time.” All true facts.

“Ok, so if that is the way you are leaning I am fine with it,” he said, placing an arm around her shoulder. “You know you might have to be induced, right?”

He felt, rather than saw, her make a face. “Yeah, I read about that, it doesn’t seem painful or humiliating at all.” Richard, who hadn’t read about the actual procedure, now wondered what the hell it involved. He just assumed it was some sort of injection of hormones. He made a mental note to look it up later, he didn’t want to look like an idiot on the day. “There is a lot of advice online about how to induce labour naturally, from castor oil to other activities you might enjoy.” He could guess what that was, and he instantly became distracted by trying to work out ways they would negotiate her growing bump. It was something he was too nervous to google. One of the books was bound to have a chapter on this.

“I haven’t quite gotten through all the pain management leaflets yet,” Camille carried on, bringing Richard back from his contemplations of positions that it may be necessary to use on the future.

“Surely you don’t need to read those,” he said absently. “You’ll just be having an epidural won’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Camille asked.

“An epidural is the recommended form of pain relief for giving birth to twins,” he explained.

“I _know_ , but that doesn’t mean I’ll just be having one.”

“Camille they don’t just recommend it for fun, you know, they do so for good medical reasons.”

“But there _is_ a choice, Richard. There must be plenty of women who give birth to twins vaginally without an epidural! There are places in the world where they probably don’t even _have_ access to epidurals!” She argued back.

“And those places also have high maternal and infant mortality rates,” he pointed out immediately.

“You know there are risks involved with epidurals, as well,” she said, suddenly sitting forward and sorting through the leaflets that had recently took up permanent residence on the coffee table. “See, a 1 in 100 chance of a puncture of the dura!” Richard strongly suspected Camille was blagging it right now, and didn’t know what the dura was let alone what the consequences of a puncture to it were.

“Admittedly the headaches that can cause are pretty unpleasant,” Richard told her.

“Speaking from experience, are you?”

“Yes,” he said, surprising her. “I tore a ligament in my knee chasing a suspect way back when I was in uniform.”

He’d clearly thrown her with that statement. “I didn’t know that,” she said, sounding both meek and a little guilty, as if she should know every detail of his life.

“Well we don’t know _every_ details of each other’s past yet,” he said, sighing deeply. “And I wouldn’t expect us too. I don’t think I’ve told you much about my career in uniform, mostly because I spent every minute trying to do things that would get me into CID.” They’d gotten off track now, and Richard wasn’t sure if he wanted to remind Camille of the conversation they were supposed to be having, now she had seemed to calm down.

“I have seen the photos though,” she was saying. “You looked so cute in uniform.”  

“I did not look _cute_ ,” he protested.

“Yes you did, especially in the hat,” she teased. It seemed to Richard like she didn’t want to go back to fighting either. Perhaps they could talk about it again later, he was willing to bet the midwife and the doctors would also recommend and epidural and she’d come round to the idea in the end.

 

* * *

 

_12 weeks earlier_

Richard could tell she was in a bad mood as soon as he walked in the door. Camille had had another appointment at the Doctor’s that day, and he was guessing the birthing plan discussion had not gone to her liking. When he entered the kitchen she was chopping garlic in a far more aggressive manner than the poor clove deserved. Garlic had featured heavily in their meals recently, and though Richard supposed there were worse cravings for a pregnant woman to have, the three cloves she had put in the pasta sauce the night before had been a bit overpowering.

“Do you want some help?” He asked. She dropped the knife and just pointed at the chopping board – an ideal situation as now he could control the garlic levels, and she no longer had a sharp instrument in her hand for when he asked the next question. “How did the appointment go?” His question was met by a huffy silence.  “Camille?” He prompted.

“They want me to have an epidural,” she said eventually. “They said I had other options, but they were _really_ pushing the epidural.”

“Well,” he said. “It _is_ the safest option.”

More silence. Then a rather whiny, “It can cause nerve damage you know.”

“Only very rarely.” He paused, then dared to ask, “Is it what you are going to go for?”

“I don’t know yet!” She snapped.

Having finished with the garlic, Richard turned to look at her properly and realised that she was actually quite upset, and he still didn’t really understand _why_. “Camille, why does the idea of having an epidural bother you so much?”

Another long silence followed. He opened his mouth to try and phrase it another way, but she cut him off before he could say anything, “I don’t want to talk about it. You wouldn’t understand anyway!” She then promptly left the kitchen, in case he was in any doubt over the veracity of her statement – one that had actually hurt a little. He knew she wasn’t really mad at him though, and judging from her behaviour in recent weeks it wouldn’t be long before she was dragging him off to bed. This wasn’t exactly a situation they could ignore forever though, and certainly one that wasn’t fixed by sex.

He would have to think of something.

 

* * *

 

_11 weeks earlier_

Once again, Richard turned to research as his savoir. He was forced to turn to the internet for this task, where he found several forums for parents of twins or multiples and those expecting them. He was forced to sign up (spending ages carefully picking a user name he felt couldn’t be traced back to him but that he could actually remember) to see most of the posts. His aim was to research the concerns other woman had about giving birth to twins, specifically any anxieties about epidurals, and then figure out if any sounded like they might be worrying Camille. Then, when the subject next came up, he might actually be able to convince her that he did in fact understand.

Richard soon discovered that women (and 98% of the people on the forums were women) were not shy about sharing really quite intimate details on the birth…and in one thread, the conception. He also learned several new positions to help with making love with an expanding bump, one woman had even scanned in a diagram she had drawn. Richard highly doubted there was a forum on the internet where men shared such exact details about the pain and discomfort of prostrate examinations, but these women seemed perfectly happy to discuss the intimate places they had required stiches, or incontinence issues post birth. If he was Camille, he’d be bloody terrified – in fact he was now officially terrified on her behalf. He wondered if there was a way to gently remind her to do pelvic floor exercises, she hadn’t reacted well to his suggestion about trying to avoid diastasis recti so perhaps it was best avoided.

After navigating the forums for a day or two, he was able to find a couple of posts that actually seemed relevant. Then he found a post by one woman – with several others coming in to say they agreed – that really resonated. It just seemed like exactly the kind of thing that would upset Camille, with all her idealism, a trait he loved about her. Richard really, really hoped he was right though – because if he brought it up and was wrong, it’d probably drive her further away.

 

* * *

 

 

Richard sat down next to her on the sofa. Camille had her eyes closed, clearly tired out. “I know,” he began – immediately hearing the nerves in his voice. He hoped Camille didn’t notice them. “That a lot of women make birth plans, hoping for a natural birth – without pain killers, or perhaps at most a bit of gas and air. Or perhaps a water birth. And when they make those birth plans, they know nobody will make them stick to them – if they need extra pain relief it’ll be provided.” She opened her eyes to look at him, it wasn’t a glare so he wasn’t worried yet. “But when you are having twins, all those options become much more complicated – all the risks are different and it must feel like choices are being taken away from you.”

She looked at him for a moment, and Richard held his breath. Eventually Camille cried, “You _do_ understand!” Before chucking herself into his arms. “It’s perfectly possible that I might have been screaming for drugs 10 minutes into labour but I wanted to have a _go_ at doing it myself.”

“You know when they induce labour you’ll have contractions for a while before they give you the epidural.”

“It’s not the same, Richard.”

“No, I suppose it’s not,” he admitted. “But having the epidural is a safe option. More things can go wrong and it means they can take you straight to theatre if it does, though fingers crossed it won’t obviously. It won’t make you less of a woman because you have one, you know.”

“I _know_ ,” she said with a sigh. “I do know. And I’ll get the epidural.”

“Plus maybe we’ll have another one someday. Statistically you are _very_ unlikely to have twins again. And if we do, with that birth you can scream for drugs or otherwise all you like.”

 

* * *

 

_4 Weeks Earlier_

 

The 28 week scan went fine – both babies were around the same size, in fact the sonographer was surprised by their size. The midwife had told them they may need to consider induction at around 36 to 37 weeks if Camille didn’t go into labour before that, and that if they continued to grow at their current rate they would give a couple of steroid shots as early delivery seemed likely. The babies were in delivery position yet, but there was awhile to go yet before it was necessary for them to both be head down, though Camille had suddenly become concerned this might not occur. She had asked about External Cephalic Version if one baby should not get into position, but was told this was rarely an option used for twins and she would be unlikely to find anybody on the island, which only increased her anxiety. He popped out to the shops one day, to return and find Camille scrubbing the kitchen floor.

“What on earth are you doing?” He asked, placing the shopping on the table and helping her up. “We have a mop and I’d do it if you think the floor needs cleaning.”

“I overheard a midwife say they used to have a lot less breech births when women used to scrub floors! Something to do with gravity helping the baby into position. I also heard swimming helps, but I don’t think there is a swimming costume on this planet that could fit me at the moment.”

Richard thought she was being a little bit mental, but had enough common sense not to say that. “Well, um, as an alternative to that one of the books does have some _gentle_ exercises you could try. And we do have plenty of time for you to do them.” He also wanted to remind her she had agreed to have a caesarean if it looked like there were going to be complications…but they had only just sorted the whole birthing plan issue and he didn’t want to start again.

“Oh,” she said. “Well why didn’t you tell me that before?” She looked rather grumpy. Richard had learnt by now to accept things being his fault, even when they weren’t.

 

* * *

 

_Present time_

 

Camille sat in the car, poking her belly and muttering ‘be head down’ repeatedly on the way to the hospital. He crossed his fingers, and prayed that they were, because he knew how disappointed she would be if it wasn’t the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was getting a little long, so we’ll just have to have a 32 weeks part B.


	14. 32 weeks Park B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are the sort of person who can’t watch an episode of “One born every minute”, this chapter might not be to your taste.

Richard was halfway across the car park, chattering away in what he hoped was a distracting manner about what they should have for dinner, when he realised that Camille was not beside him. He turned around to find she was wedged between two cars, struggling to get out. He grimaced, and hurried back to help her.

“Why didn’t you go around the other side?” He asked, indicating the fact there was plenty of room.

“Well there _was_ a time I would have fit quite easily through a gap like this!” She snapped back. Richard decided not to say anything further on the matter, and he certainly wasn’t going to remind her that she had gotten stuck attempting a similar move a week earlier…

Having freed her, he glanced at his watch and realised that might be late if they didn’t hurry, so strode off towards the clinic. At the door he turned to find once again she was not behind him, but still waddling across the car park. Oh boy, he was in real trouble now – Camille had repeatedly berated him over the past few weeks for not slowing down for her. The problem was Richard was just so used to her _always_ being beside him – at work, at home – usually it was her who could outpace him. And in fact, until relatively recently, she had seemed able to still keep up. She shot him one hell of a look as he opened the door for her, and he resolved to take her out for ice cream to try to make up for him being a moron today.

Well, slightly more of a moron than usual.

They checked in with the receptionist who surprised them slightly by telling them, “Dr Hart has asked to see you after to discuss the results of the scan and the birth plan.”

“Hart?” Camille repeated, frowning. “My obstetrician is Henrietta Bauer.”

“Dr Hart is a visiting physician from the UK, and some patients have been transferred to him. I’m sure he’ll have more details for you,” she told them, before pointing them down the corridor towards the waiting room.

 

* * *

 

 

Camille might be heavily pregnant, and thus slower at many tasks, but she hadn’t lost her detective skills. So she noted that Richard gave a double take when they walked into the examination room where the usual sonographer and midwife were waiting, along with a serious looking man who appeared to be in his late fifties. Richard recognised him.

“Lord and Lady Poole,” the stranger (at least to Camille) said solemnly. “I am Dr Hart, here as a visiting physician from St Mary’s hospital in London. A few of Dr Bauer’s patients have been assigned to me, hopefully this isn’t objectionable to you?”

Camille was about to ask some more questions when, to her surprise, Richard actually answered _for_ her. “Of course not,” he said, squeezing her hand as if to say she should trust him. “Camille, Lord Hart and I have met on a few occasions in the past, though probably the last time was when I was 12. He is the 3 rd son of the Maquiss of Ely.” So _he_ did know him, though she wasn’t sure that gave him the right to answer for her just yet.

“I think Dr Hart is more suitable given the circumstances,” the doctor responded, looking studiously at his notes. Camille thought this was another member of the aristocracy who would rather not have a title, and she was quite happy to use the one he had studied for if that was what he preferred.

“Now, Lady Poole,” he continued. “I think you know the drill?” He gestured towards the bed.

“Oh you don’t have to call me Lady Poole,” she said. It was a sentence she had uttered so many times since her marriage that it was starting to become an automatic response to hearing her title.

“Very well, Lady Richard.” _Lady Richard_? That was a new one on her – she supposed it was slightly less formal. She was about to tell him just ‘Camille’ was fine when she caught site of Richard, who gave a small shake of her head. Not wanting to drag the examination out (especially since she was starting to need the toilet) she heaved herself up on to the bed and let the sonographer begin preparations.

“Ok so as well as a check on their general progress, today we will be seeing what positions the two babies are in,” Dr Hart told her unnecessarily. “Baby A at the very least should be head down at this stage.” He said this whilst not looking at Camille, instead staring intently at the screen. “And I can confirm that is the case.” Camille beamed and sent out a silent pray of thanks.

Dr Hart called out some measurements duly taken down by the midwife, occasionally muttering ‘very good’ and at one point ‘quite an impressive size’ which for obvious reason made Camille feel nervous, rather than relieved. How big was Baby A?

“Ok can we move on to Baby B?” Camille held her breath as the sonographer located her second child, but she didn’t need to be a doctor to interpret the image that was on screen. “Baby B is transverse, right to left orientation.” Dr Hart said briskly, then began to call out the same measurements as he had for Baby A. Through her fog of disappointment, Camille did register that they seemed pretty similar, though Baby B apparently had a slightly smaller head. “Right if you would like to get cleaned up Lady Richard I will meet you in my office. I am sure Midwife Adu will lead you there. Lord Richard,” he said with a nod to her husband, before leaving.

Camille was about to ask Richard if he understood what was going on, but before she could the midwife said brightly, “Aren’t you lucky that Dr Hart is here visiting?”

“Um…” Camille started, not entirely sure how lucky she should feel.

“He’s on the board of trustees of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists you know!” The midwife explained. “And on top of that his specialism is in multiple births which makes him really the ideal doctor for you really.”

The pronouncement left Camille a little shell shocked. Whilst trying to get her top down she turned to Richard and asked, “Did you know that?”

“Well, I seemed to remember the Marquiss of Ely had a son who was quite a prominent doctor in something I was 95% sure was obstetrics, but I didn’t know about the board of trustees or multiple births specialism…”

“Well I suppose we are quite lucky then.” Richard didn’t reply, he was looking thoughtful – it was his ‘there are no coincidences this big’ look that she saw quite often on cases. Camille resolved to ask him later on, out of earshot of the medical staff. Her curiosity was also somewhat dampened by the news that Baby B hadn’t turned. Though she was sure she had read it was possible to have a natural birth as long as Baby A is head down, she knew it would now be more complicated.

They settled themselves down in Dr Hart’s assigned office, where he was busy scrutinising her notes. “I’ve been reading through your birth plan, Lady Richard, and I wish to assure you that at this stage it is still possible to proceed with a vaginal birth – even if Baby B should remain transverse. Though there is still plenty of time for Baby B to turn yet.”

“How would the labour go if Baby B is transverse?”

Dr Hart cleared his throat, “Well, after baby A is delivered we would do what is called an internal cephalic version. In the most basic terms, I would insert my hand into your cervix and physically turn Baby B in the womb, and guide him or her to the birth canal.”

Next to her, Richard squirmed. Camille actually felt it to be an appropriate reaction in this instance. “You mean like a vet would to a cow?” She asked faintly.

“Well, cows and humans are both placental mammals, though usually we don’t compare our mums to cattle!” Dr Hart joked somewhat weakly. Richard, Camille noted, did actually smile. “I can assure you it is a well-used technique.”

“Yes,” said Camille. “By vets.”

“And by doctors,” he said rather firmly, he probably thought her dismay was a little silly. “Though actually I have experience of the method in both a veterinary and medical context. Used to help out on the estate sometimes when I was growing up. Here, would you like this literature on the method?”

As he pushed a couple of print outs at her, Camille noticed his hands for the first time. His very large, massive, ginormous hands. She could easily imagine they had pulled a calf from a distressed cow before, what she couldn’t imagine was them being _inside her_. She only half listened as Dr Hart explained that if she didn’t go into labour naturally by 36 weeks, they would want to book her in for an induction at around 37. Or a Caesarean, as that of course also remained an option.

“How far would your arm go inside me?” She asked, interrupting him mid-flow as he and Richard were discussing which methods of encouraging babies to turn were old wives tales and which might have scientific merit. If Dr Hart was surprised by the sudden question long after they had covered the topic, he didn’t let it show.

“Well, um, it will of course depend on the length of your birth canal. But, um, you know, not up to my elbow.” A small alarmed sound may have escaped her then, which caused both men to look at her in surprise. “I believe it was featured on a few episodes of that documentary, One Born Every Minute, so perhaps you could watch that to get more of an idea of the procedure. Please don’t feel it is your only option, Lady Richard.”

Camille just nodded mutely. She was then forced to listen to Richard and Dr Hart exchange news of the other’s family, polite small talk she knew was necessary in their world but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to leave that instant. With one last ‘do give my best to the Duke’ they finally headed outside and back to the car.

 

* * *

 

Richard was not so dense that he didn’t know something was wrong with Camille after their chat with Dr Hart – and the whole thing had started at the words ‘internal cephalic version’. “So, um, have your, uh, birth plans changed?” He asked.

“He wants to stick his arm inside me.” She paused. “His arm, inside me _._ ”

Yes…it certainly didn’t sound very pleasant. But not much about labour did really. “Well, the epidural will prevent you from feeling any pain.”

“Epidural or not I think I will notice _his arm inside me_!” She shouted at him. “Oh God, did you not see the size of that man’s hands?”

He thought back, but he really hadn’t been paying attention. “Um, I didn’t notice that they were particularly large…” he confessed.

“Well they were,” she said with vehemence. He went to try to say something comforting, but Camille held a hand up and said, “I don’t think I want to talk about it anymore right now.”

“Ok,” he agreed. “Um, do you want to stop for ice cream?”

“I really do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Camille couldn’t help but smile at the sundae she was delivered. He’d convinced them to add sparklers. “What are we celebrating?” She asked, because right now she didn’t feel they had much of a reason.

“Officially I told them it was the anniversary of our first date…”

“I don’t think we ever had a first date,” she pointed out.

“Yes, I know that. Unofficially it is just to celebrate you.”

“Me?”

“Yep, you.”

“Well, I am amazing,” she joked, digging in. “So how do you know Dr Hart?” She asked around a mouthful of ice cream, nuts and chocolate sauce.

“Well his father and mine did serve in the diplomatic service together, years ago now. Though they were good friends. They used to play chess by correspondence, though they do it online these days. One of the few aspects of modern technology my Father truly appreciates. Truth is, I rather think Dad might be behind his arrival…”

Camille scoffed a little at this, “I know your father has connections, Richard, but he can hardly make a man fly half way across the world to deliver his grandchildren! He was probably already coming, and your Dad just ensured I was one of the patients transferred to him.”

“Yes, but what reason could he possibly have to come here?” Richard pointed out. “My father doesn’t call in favours very often, but he is very free at doing them for others. I reckon he has accrued enough good will to pull this off. Though dear God don’t mention it to him, he’d rather we pretend we were clueless and it was all a bit coincidence.”

Richard seemed so sure, and so sincere, Camille was forced to acknowledge he was probably right. “Guess he really cares about your issue…I am sure Dr Bauer would have done a perfectly good job but I also suppose I shouldn’t complain, it was quite a major thing to arrange.”

“He and Mum are both very keen on grandchildren, and it has very little to do with succession, it is only natural they would do anything to ensure their safe delivery.”

Camille reached over and squeezed Richard’s hand, wanting him to understand she wasn’t implying his father was obsessed with the future Viscount of Ipswich only. He smiles and squeezed her hand back. “Going back to the Marquiss of Ely’s son, what is with the ‘Lady Richard’? When I told him he didn’t have to call me Lady Poole I meant Camille would be fine…”

“Oh old Lord Anthony is far too old fashioned to ever call you by your first name.”

“He isn’t that much older than you! Besides, he asked to be called Dr Hart, how come he gets to choose and I don’t?”

Richard hesitated, clearly he knew more than he was letting on. “Well, um, first of all I believe it is more appropriate to refer to him as Doctor in these circumstances, though I may need to check that. I imagine ‘doctor’ may also be a more important title to him personally…and secondly, um, well rumour is that Dr Hart is really rather terrified of women. And I think calling them by their titles is one way he deals with that.”

“ _Terrified of women?_ ” She repeated back, incredulous. “Why on earth would he go into obstetrics of all things if he was terrified of women?”

Richard bit his lip, considering his answer, “Well perhaps terrified is the wrong phrase. Doesn’t understand women would be better – baffled by them for some reason. I heard that he chose obstetrics because he thought understanding how they worked, um, mechanically might give him insight into how they think.”

Camille suddenly wasn’t feeling so lucky having him as her doctor Richard caught her expression and continued, “But he really is _very_ good Camille, if I didn’t trust him you know I wouldn’t let him near you. Just don’t expect him to, you know, look at you all that much.”

Camille decided to just apply herself to her ice cream.

 

* * *

 

 

That evening, Camille came into the front room looking despondent. She carefully lowered herself onto the sofa next to him, simply flopping on was no longer an option in case she unbalanced the entire thing, and said miserably, “I watched that episode of _One Born_.”

“Right,” he said, waiting for her to expand.

“It was just as bad as I imagined.”

“You don’t want to go down the internal cephalic version route?” Richard guessed.

Camille didn’t reply for definite either way, just said, “I’m a horrible mother.”

“You are _not_ a horrible mother. From the description I wouldn’t want one either.”

“But I made all that fuss about epidurals and then when it comes down to it, I balk at the method that I might need to actually give birth the way I wanted!”

“If you can’t stand the idea than it isn’t the way you want, is it?” He said sensibly. “Besides there are other reasons to avoid it such as the complications. And you know, Dr Hart is right, there _is_ still time for the baby to turn over.” She leaned into him, and he put an arm around her. He didn’t let her see he had his fingers crossed, though he did think they needed a little extra luck.


	15. 34 Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearly there folks! Just a short chapter. Very busy at the moment so I am afraid there may be some long silences.

Richard panicked when he got home and she wasn’t there. Camille had been on maternity leave for a while now, once the bump had become so cumbersome it was impossible for her to work, and she was nearly _always_ at home when he returned from work. And if she wasn’t going to be, she told him – sent a text or made a phone call. Could he have possibly missed a message? He pulled out his phone, but there was nothing there. Had she gone into labour? Perhaps unable to contact him because of the suddenness of the onset, or a low battery on her phone? No, surely _somebody_ at the hospital would have rung him. Or their particularly nosey elderly neighbour would have seen the ambulance, and been bouncing on the doorstep to ask him questions about it as soon as he got out of the car. He needed to think logically – the most likely scenario was that she had gone out and lost track of time.

Still, he couldn’t help but look about the house for a note, which proved to be non-existent. He held out another 10 minutes, knowing she would be annoyed if he checked up on her for no reason even given how advanced her pregnancy was, before giving in and calling her. There was no answer. Richard was about to try Catherine when he heard the front door open – he hurried to it and was relieved by the sight of his wife waddling in.

“Where have you been? Why didn’t you leave me a message, or answer when I called? I everything okay?” He regretted his outburst instantly, luckily he had spoken so fast he thought Camille would only have barely understood him. “Sorry,” he said equally quickly, stepping forward and kissing her cheek in greeting. He noticed then that her hair was damp, and she smelled like…like chlorine? “Have you been swimming?”

“Yes!” She told him brightly, as she settled down on a chair. “Sorry I didn’t answer, I was driving. I meant to tell you I was going out but I honestly thought I would be home before you, didn’t take into account how long changing would take me. Still there wasn’t any need to worry,” she added at the end, chiding him as she always did when he got into a panic for no reason.

“Right, yes, of course,” he said. Before realising it wasn’t really ‘of course’. Swimming was not the most natural thing for Camille to be doing in her condition. “Why on earth were you swimming?”

“I read online that swimming can turn a breech baby,” she said, then looked at him as if daring him to question the reasonableness of her reply.

_Of course_ it was to do with the baby – he should have guessed that straight away. Richard was unable to resist the urge to point out, “You know technically Baby B isn’t breech, he or she is transverse.”

“Oh it’s all the same thing!” She told him dismissively, waving a hand at him and she hunted through her bag for something.

“Well, no, it isn’t,” he continued peevishly. “Because transverse means the baby is laying on its side, whereas breech…” He trailed off at the glare she shot at him, deciding it wasn’t worth it. Instead he decided to go for supportive instead, “Um, do you think it worked?”

A small frown formed on her face. “I’m not sure,” she said eventually. “I mean, there was some definite movement down there but it could have just been one of their general protests on being stuck in my belly.”

“Fingers crossed,” he said with a smile he hoped wasn’t too grimace like. “Scan in two days will let us know!” He was going to let it go at that when a thought occurred to him, “Do you still fit into your old bikini?”

“God no!” She scoffed. “Haven’t you seen the size of my breasts?” He had – as a man he was pretty sure he was supposed to be appreciative or something of their increase in size, but in reality they slightly terrified him. Richard was pretty sure they were now large enough to smother him with if the thought occurred to her. She could claim it was all an accident, and that she had only wanted a cuddle. Which is why he wasn’t going to complain about her spending money on a new bathing suit she would only get, at most, a couple of weeks’ worth of wear out of…well, not out loud at least.

 

* * *

 

 

Dr Hart was waiting for them in the sonography suite again. Richard had learned he had been spending a lot of time in the free clinics, advising women in a rather brusque manner on their pregnancies and giving out anti-natal vitamins left, right and centre. The women in question were grateful, but bemused by the behaviour of the odd Englishman who seemed terribly uncomfortable examining women despite his speciality. There was a rumour going around he was related to that equally odd police chief who was also some kind of Earl – a rumour that was technically correct, as he and Lord Anthony were forth cousins. When Camille had heard about him slogging out to the more deprived areas of the island it had warmed him to her somewhat.

“I will be taking another set of measurements today and we will see if Baby B is still transverse,” he stated rather obviously. “You’ve been fit and well since our last appointment?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Camille said, showing remarkable restraint. Whenever Richard asked how she was when he got home it usually led to 20 minutes of her detailing every muscle ache she had – though once she had had a good moan she always became her usual cheerful self again. Richard couldn’t help but wonder if the habit of complaining about her ails was something she had picked up from him, and discovered to be cathartic.

“Very good, now let’s have a look shall we.” He wasted no time in getting the examination underway, but only a few seconds in he let out a little ‘ _oh_ ’ of surprise. The sonographer was also staring at the screen, brow knitted together.

“What?” Camille asked, instantly picking up on the change in atmosphere in the room. She reached for Richard’s hand and gripped it hard. “What is it?”

“Stay calm, Lady Richard, nothing is _wrong_ wrong,” Dr Hart said in a manner-of-fact tone that he probably thought was reassuring, but which did absolutely _nothing_ to calm down Camille.

“What is not ‘wrong wrong’ supposed to mean?” Camille demanded. “Either something is wrong, or it isn’t, there are not shades of grey in medicine!”

“Well, actually I can think of many examples where…” Dr Hart found himself in receipt of the same look she had levelled at Richard two days earlier. He, too, wisely chose not to persist with that line of conversation. “I should clarify that there is nothing seriously wrong. It appears that Baby A, who was previously head down though not yet engaged, has, well, flipped back over into a breech position.”

Camille let go of his hand. Richard could practically read her thoughts. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was convinced they would laugh at this someday – the small possibility that her efforts to try and get one twin head down, and led to the other flipping back the wrong way round.

He thought that day was probably very far away for the moment.

“It does occur, of course, and on occasion they will right themselves again - though this particular instance it very interesting. I mean, in all my time with twins I have never seen this but there is no reason why it shouldn’t occur. It is likely just to be a bit of bad lucky I’m afraid, Lady Richard.”

Richard hoped Camille would believe the bad luck bit, and not blame herself. He hadn’t really believed that the swimming would actually turn Baby B, but now he was wondering if there was something in it. “Is it okay if I carry on with the measurements?” Camille nodded, and they were duly taken.

In his officer, Dr Hart assumed a serious look. “Now Lord and Lady Richard, I do not think we should delay the delivery of the children. It is unlikely Baby A will turn again before delivery, and I strongly suggest that we book you in for a caesarean early next week. Both babies are a good size and we can give you a steroid injection as well to help get their lungs ready. Shall I have the receptionist book you in?”

They shared a look – both knew it was the only real option. Camille seemed more sulky that disappointed to him though. “Sure,” she said. Then added, “I’m getting fed up of dragging his children around anyway.”

Of course, now they were causing problems, they were _his_ children, not theirs.  


	16. 35 Weeks

Every day he would leave Camille to go to work, having arranged his time off now they knew when the delivery would be, with a list of things that needed to be done before the babies arrived left in the middle of the kitchen table. Obviously this did not include tasks that required heavy lifting, or anything particularly arduous not suitable for a heavily pregnant woman. Richard had completed all of those tasks weeks ago, getting a little thrill of satisfaction every time he crossed another thing off the list. No, these were tasks Camille could easily complete – things where it would probably be preferable for her to do, such as packing her back for the hospital. “Why do I need to do that a week early?” She had grumbled when Richard had pointed it out. “I’ll do it the night before!”

And so, when he returned from work each done, none of the items would be ticked off and he would undertake one or two himself. Richard had only created the list out of love – he hated the idea of her sitting around the house most of the day fretting about the upcoming caesarean. He thought the list would give her things to keep her mind occupied. He knew Catherine was making an effort to stop by each day and was grateful. On the fifth day, his mother-in-law informed him Camille was far from fretting, it was more like _sulking_ that she wasn’t getting her own way with the birth plan. Richard decided for the moment she should be able to get her way in everything else. She got to pick what they had for dinner, watched on TV. He held up each of the baby grows and other outfits they had accumulated and let her decide which would be coming to hospital with them. He hadn’t realised up until then the coming home outfit was such a good deal.

 

* * *

 

 

At breakfast, Richard wondered if he should have taken the day off before the caesarean as well. Surely today Camille would be worried and in need of support? When he mentioned something along those lines, she just smiled at him and said he was sweet, but she would be fine, before she leaned in to kiss him goodbye. He lingered a little on that kiss.

“You know, I could always be late for work…” He said half joking, half hoping she might encourage the idea.

She raised a single eyebrow in response. “Are you serious?” She asked. “I am 35 weeks pregnant with twins, at least a million kilograms with a bump I swear grows another 5 cm a day, haven’t seen my feet in weeks and barely have enough lung capacity to climb the stairs and you want to have sex?”

Richard felt thoroughly chastised. What had he been thinking…well, obviously he knew _exactly_ what he had been thinking it, and it was entirely inconsiderate of him. He moved away from her immediately, feeling as awkward as a teenager who had been rejected by a girl he had asked to dance at the school disco. “Of course, I should have thought, I’ll leave you alone to get some rest…”

“Oh no you won’t,” she said interrupting him. She smiled and heaved herself up from the chair. “I want to see you try and negotiate this bump. Besides, it could be weeks before you get another chance.”

“Weeks?” Richard repeated faintly. He had never considered that.

Camille gave a small shrug, “With two babies, maybe even months.” She walked off towards the bedroom, leaving him standing in the kitchen contemplating her words. She was probably joking, winding him up. He knew there would be a period of recovery but months…surely she was joking? Just in case he better make this time count…

 

* * *

 

 

Richard couldn’t stop looking at the needle as the cheerful anaesthetist prepared the epidural. It was a big needle – a bloody big needle. When he had had the epidural done himself all those years ago he had deliberately not looked, fearing that he may have panicked if he had. No doubt he would have, because he was feeling a bit sick now and he wasn’t even the one whom the needle was intended for.

“Oh please,” Camille scoffed, seeing where his gaze was fixated. “It isn’t going into _your_ spine. Besides, I have seen bigger needles. Try getting the pose-exposure rabies treatment.”

“When did you need that?” Richard asked, alarmed.

“That’s classified,” she said mysteriously. He was willing to bet it wasn’t really. After all, there were no mysterious gaps in her staff file as far as he could remember. Of course, that could be because of the insertion of cover stories…no, no she was smiling. Once again Camille was winding him up. One day he might be able to tell straight away. Apart from Harry (who Richard absolutely had not caught and definitely wasn’t living in Camille’s shed which he hadn’t cut a lizard flap into), Richard avoided contact with most vertebrates of the non-human variety. In fact he did a lot of avoidance of the ones of the human variety as well. The point being, he rather hoped that would mean he would not be requiring post-exposure rabies treatment. Ever.

The anaesthetist approached. “Do you want to hold my hand?” Richard offered Camille gallantly. He got a glare as a reply, and took that as a no.

“Hold nice and still please,” the doctor said, expertly inserting the needle. Camille gave a little grunt of what might have been pain, but Richard knew better than to ask. “Excellent, well done. Once that has kicked in we’ll get you down to theatre. Inspector Poole you still need to get changed,” she pointed out before leaving. Richard sighed. He had avoided so far putting on the scrubs neatly folded on a chair in the room. Camille had thought it fully when it became clear he planned to wear his suit and tie to the hospital – though he didn’t know why. His own father had no doubt worn a suit the day he had been born. Of course his own father had paced a corridor waiting for a neatly wrapped bundle to be presented to him. These days babies were passed over still bloody and howling, and his shirt would probably get ruined. And it was one of his better ones.

“You might look quite good in them,” his wife suggested. “I always wish I could have seen you the last time you scrubbed up.”

“Yeah, so you could have had a good laugh,” he replied moodily. Her silence informed him he was right. At least this time he wouldn’t be holding anything in place.

“Well, it’ll be much easier to whip off for that skin to skin contact,” she said, causing him to pause in the process of picking up the shirt. Of great comfort to Camille after she had learnt that they would have to deliver by C-section was the promise by the team that, all being well, she should be able to have skin to skin contact with the babies within 2 to 3 minutes of their birth. Camille took this to mean that Richard, too, would be partaking in the activity – even if that meant he had to take off his shirt in front of a room full of midwives and the son of a marquis. It wasn’t that Richard didn’t believe in skin-to-skin contact, the studies all seemed pretty conclusive, it was just he felt it could wait until they were home…with no witnesses. Camille knew this, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t still trying.

“Camille, I’m not going to…”

“I know!” She said, though it wasn’t entirely a tone of acceptance, more of frustrated defeat. “Just go get changed.”

 

* * *

 

Richard successfully managed to get into the theatre without catching a glimpse of himself in the scrubs. He also assumed the smile Camille got on her face every time she looked at him was to do with the excitement of the imminent delivery of the twins, and nothing to do with his current attire. Camille did not smile at the screen they erected, before Richard asked, “Do you really want to see them cut you open and rummage about?”

“Well when you put it that way…”

Dr Hart entered then, wearing a surprisingly jaunty bandana for a man who seemed so reserved. It appeared to feature brightly coloured parakeets, and Richard wondered if he had picked it up on the island as a souvenir of sorts. The sight of it actually seemed to relax Camille somewhat.

“Lord and Lady Richard, if Dr Yelloway is in agreement we should be able to begin momentarily. Now Lady Poole you will experience some discomfort during the caesarean, but there shouldn’t be any pain, please do let Dr Yelloway know if there is.” Camille just nodded, suddenly rather solemn.

Suddenly people were very busy behind the screen, Richard was kind of curious to look but knew he would regret it if he did. Besides, he was pretty certain his place was here beside Camille. Where he could pretend he was keeping her calm when in reality she was the one calming him.

“You might start to feel some discomfort now,” Dr Hart said, and indeed Camille did make a face.

“You ok?” He asked, concern clouding his features.

“They are rummaging inside me, it’s odd but it doesn’t hurt.”

“Now, midwife,” Said Dr Hart solemnly. “Which do you think looks more like they should inherit a Dukedom?”

“WHAT?” Camille shouted, very nearly trying to sit up before remembering she was being operated on. “You are going to PICK which one is born first?”

Dr Hart seemed taken aback by Camille’s extreme reaction, “Now Lady Richard, that was, uh, um, well you see I read a study that said use of humour is good in bedside manner and…” Under Camille’s fierce gaze he continued lamely, “Just a little joke. Baby A will of course be being delivered first.”

He paused, perhaps to see if Camille would smile, but instead she just spat out, “Oh get on with it.” Richard quickly hid his own smile (he had thought it was _a little_ bit funny, and would tell Anthony later when Camille was out of ear shot. He appreciated the man’s attempt to try to be personable) but Camille must have spotted it out of the corner of her eye because he was the next recipient of a glare. Luckily, she wasn’t going to stay mad at him for long, because something very distracting arrived at that moment. Namely, a baby.

“Here we are then,” Dr Hart said rather perfunctory manner, and the screen was briefly dropped to show a tiny writhing mass briefly, before it was whisked away. “Your son,” he added as an afterthought.

Camille’s first question was, “Is he okay?” Whilst Richard said at nearly the same time, “Are they normally _that_ purple?”

A sharp and _very_ loud cry filled the room, which kind of answered Camille’s question. “Can you hear him crying?” She asked him redundantly as tears filled her eyes, Richard wasn’t sure how anybody could miss crying that loud. He expected they could hear his new son up at the station.

Wow. _His_ new son. _His_ son. He had a son. Before that could really sink in, Dr Hart announced, “And your other son!” An equally purple (he guessed that _was_ normal) and squirmy mass was briefly shown to them.

He had _two_ sons. The Poole tradition of all men continued! His Dad would be pleased about being right. His brain wanted to do the maths, figure out what the statistical likelihood was of _another_ generation of all boys, but there was too much emotion swirling around in there to allow it. They were both straining their heads now, keenly aware Baby B had not yet made a noise whilst his older brother continued to howl his lungs out. It felt like the whole room was holding their breath, even as he continued to work on Camille Dr Hart would glance over his shoulder to watch the activity of the midwives. One arrived carrying baby one, or Peter as Richard supposed he should now be called, ready for Camille to take but she was torn, pleased to be presented with him but still waiting for news of his brother.

In the weeks to come, Richard would curse the noise he heard next – especially at 4 in the morning. But at the moment Baby B, known from that day forth as Julian, opened his mouth and let out what was at first meek but increasingly annoyed cry, it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. The whole room relaxed, and Richard thought he heard one of the midwives say, “That’s a good noise! Crying is good.”

Camille, holding Peter close to her skin, whispered to him, “Hear that? That’s your brother. He’ll be coming over here in a minute for a cuddle as well. But don’t worry Daddy will pull his shirt off and hold you later.” Richard cleared his throat and Camille added, “Okay, the bit about shirt wasn’t true.”

 

* * *

 

 

“All that fuss about changing the succession rules and you had two boys!” The Duke of Graton declared. Richard had called forgetting entirely about the time difference, but was forgiven due to the nature of the news he delivered.

“I wouldn’t…you know…put it that way if you talk to Camille.”

“Good Lord I know, I do have some sense of self-preservation, I have lived with your mother for nearly 50 years now!” He joked. “Plus she is to be revered at this point, two six pound babies! Goodness you alone were six pounds.” Richard was surprised his father new a fact like that. “You make sure you look after her,” he told Richard before saying goodbye.

He returned to their gloriously private room where Camille was recovering. She lay in bed with both babies on her chest, having barely let them go since she had been handed them. Richard had only been allowed a brief cuddle with each, and was glad his father hadn’t asked him to describe the boys, because he probably only could have provided an accurate description of the crown of their heads. Very beautiful crowns they were too, but it would be nice to see a bit more.

“Do you think they are identical?” She whispered, Richard presumed because they were asleep. “They look pretty similar, but I think I can spot differences.”

“From all I have seen they look identical to every baby,” he muttered.

“Richard!” She scolded him. “You should be full of joy, not grumpy, you have two sons.”

“Yeah well,” he grumbled. “You don’t have to keep them all to yourself you know.”

Camille gave him a patient smile, “If you want to hold one of them you can just ask you know. Do you want Peter or Julian?” Spotting the look on Richard’s face she added, “Here why don’t you take both of them?”

He was nearly overcome by a sudden bout of nerves, fearing he would drop them both, but they soon passed once he had the boys in his arms. They had stirred awake during the exchange, and both looked up at him with big eyes. He found he didn’t have any words…it was all a bit overwhelming. To cover that he asked jokingly, “They do look pretty similar. Which is Peter and which is Julian again?”

“Well Peter was the one on my right and Julian on the left…so that means Julian is in your right arm and Peter the left…no wait, didn’t you pick them up in the other order?”

Richard bit his lip, “Um, I don’t really remember?”

“Peter is the wrinklier one,” Camille said confidently. Richard looked down at them both but couldn’t detect a difference between the levels of ‘wrinkles’ before the baby. Camille, clearly thinking him unobservant, gestured for him to move in closer so she could look. “Oh,” she said after brief examination. “Um, they look different now you are holding them,” she offered by way of excuse. “Oh God, what if we can’t figure it out?”

“Relax! They have their little bracelet things on labelled Baby Poole A and Baby Poole B.” He sat on the edge of the bed and held the babies whilst Camille unwrapped them enough to reveal their feet and ankle labels. “Ah!” She said triumphantly. “This says A, it is Peter. Or, I think it is an A, the handwriting is a bit hard to read.”

“Well compare it to the other one, we don’t want the midwives hearing us call the babies by the wrong names!”

Camille peered at the label as instructed. “It’s, um, a bit smudged.”

“Take one so I can have a proper look,” Richard said, wanting to end this before it got out of hand. Camille happily received back a baby and Richard examined the smudgy bracelet. He took a look at the other little boy as well. “That is a B, this is Julian,” he said confidently referring to the child he held. “And it is a dodgy A but it is an A on Peter there.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I am sure!”

He really wasn’t sure. But there was no way he was telling Camille that.

 

THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look I actually finished a story! I was so thrilled to do so I may have posted this without reading it through properly, so an apology for any typos. To be frank, I find typos on the stuff I have proofread! Now maybe I will have time to concentrate on some of the other ones. There is a forth part to this series in my head, but it is set three years in the future and it may well take that long before I get around to it. Also, I am sure hospitals would label twins better than that, but where would be the fun in that?


End file.
